


Mimicking Karma

by Pegaltan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Career Change, Character Death, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Kekkei Genkai | Bloodline Limit, Look At Your Life Look At Your Choices, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, world-building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2020-11-02 08:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 52,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pegaltan/pseuds/Pegaltan
Summary: Three months after Kannabi Bridge, Kakashi's eye starts bleeding and Rin is forced into a role of shaping the future of Konoha's Team Seven.





	1. Chapter 1

Nothing changed when Obito died.

Perhaps it had been naïve of her to expect something. Individuals often went through profound changes at the passing of their loved ones. She thought maybe she would feel different once her friend's name was set in stone.

But she didn't feel different. Rin cried at the funeral because she was expected to. Wore black because everyone else did. She didn't feel wiser for the lesson in loss. The sky didn't fall down. The sun stayed up. She wondered if her numbness made her a terrible person and her teacher reminded her that everyone processed grief differently.

The simple matter was that life resumed. Missions did not stop. Kakashi's rejection was hurtful but expected.

Obito's burial meant nothing.

She observed with a dispassionate eye as Kakashi's katon set a small hut ablaze. The enemy shinobi were still trapped inside. Doors, windows and other exits had been rigged with exploding tags to make sure none escaped alive.

It was overkill. Like weeding the flowerbed with a doton. A second later, a sudden burst of flames sucked the oxygen from the air, imprinting against her skin like a film of heat. Rin blinked several times to bleed the light from her dazzled eyes. And as the land burned around them, Kakashi opened a map and struck a line across another until she couldn't tell where one country began and the other ended.

Idly, she traced the symbol for Konoha. She worried about her teammate. The way he stood and sat and ate and slept like a sleepwalker on the edge of wakefulness. She worried about the way he shivered, racked by jolts of lightning chakra diffused in his coils.

In a way, it was strange hearing his voice after days of visual cues. There was very little to talk of between them. She and Kakashi had almost nothing in common. The effort she made on the first day, trying to fill the air with inane chatter, had long faded to silence.

"_One more,_" he promised, picking through the smoldering ashes. He stacked four grinning skulls together and crushed them under his heel. Rin flinched when he stirred the dust with his feet, holding up an equal number of forehead protectors fused to bone.

"Alright," she said, accepting the gift. She didn't believe him.

At her response, Kakashi turned west where the moon lit the clawing arc of his hair into a pale blaze. It was starting to get long on him. Curling past his ears to soften his lack of expression. It almost made him look nice. Personable even. It made him human.

She didn't voice the thought out loud and kept her council as she followed.

A lucky Iwa chunin had escaped his funerary pyre. The reasonable thing to do would have been to allow other patrol teams to arrest him. They were exhausted. She was exhausted. Why else would they broadcast their presence with explosions and loud conflagrations?

"He can't be too far." Kakashi repeated. "Just one more."

There would always be one more. All the Iwa blood in the world could not soothe Kakashi's wounded heart. Fortunately, the Iwa agent had not manage to get far. He was injured from the explosion, having been caught literally with his pants down. The side of his face was the consistency of red bean paste on melted slush and she felt a twinge of pity for the boy, barely in his teens, as she drew back and took refuge in the too-tall mushrooms.

One more thing that had not changed since Obito's death. Kakashi would not allow her in battle.

Rin knew that during the time of the warring states, men and women fought equally. A distilled tea was just as deadly as a secret shinobi technique. But shinobi were bred as much as they were trained. When the shinobi population crashed, a unanimous decision was made to protect the women from the front lines.

After the establishment of the Five Great Shinobi Nations, the anachronistic tradition remained seeped in the shinobi creed. It bled into academy training and everyday life. Despite the robust number of civilians and her genetic worthlessness, she—as a girl—was discouraged from pursuing the art. When she was taught techniques of kunoichi such as Setsuna of Black Sand or Makoto the Blade, she didn't know how the clan heads ever made the women stop fighting.

Obito had been her friend. Until he died, she hadn't known what it felt to be the weakest link. If Obito was alive, she could have deluded herself into thinking that Kakashi cared for her. He could have even loved her. But she knew that her desperate dream could never bear fruit. Obito ruined everything when he asked Kakashi to protect her. _Her_, the one who graduated ahead of an _Uchiha_ when he was busy choking on a piece of candy.

White chakra shrieked with the cry of a thousand birds as it shot past her. The Iwa chunin ceased his whimpers at the sound, at the sudden flash of Kakashi's hair, fearful of the famed Yellow Flash or the White Fang resurrected.

But it was neither who lanced lightning in his gut, a sharingan whirling like the mad eyes of a goshawk. The boy dropped to the ground. Blood sprayed the springy grass. Miraculously, the boy survived and was crying as his wound sucked at Kakashi's hand. Kakashi had deliberately missed the vital parts.

He wanted the Iwa teen to _live_.

Rin squashed a green mayfly against her elbow and cleared her throat.

"Kakashi."

When her teammate failed to answer, she shoved him aside, scanning the bleeding chunin for any information that could excuse Kakashi's actions. The teenager looked vaguely familiar. His clan symbol was stitched on the back of his collar, hidden from view. Her stomach curdled when she saw that he was a Kamizuru, a powerful Iwa clan. A second, smaller character below it stylizing his given name. After sketching the images on the back of an exploding tag, she slit the boy's throat.

The irony was that she did not care for Iwa-nin. Rin was a field medic, not a doctor or a nurse. She had taken no oaths to guard the sanctity of life, none that she hadn't broken when she left Obito in his shallow grave—she didn't know the boy at all. But she teared up when blood boiled past his lips and streaked his chin. She was furious—enough to _chew_ exploding clay—because this boy made her feel when Obito couldn't.

"Rin."

Kakashi held out his hand, obviously discomfited by her silence. She sniffled and looked up. He hadn't fixed his forehead protector yet. Both eyes were visible. His left eye was bleeding.

No, not his left eye—_Obito's_ eye.

Rin leapt to her feet, towering over Kakashi's tender twelve years. It had made her horribly awkward at first. Next to her genius teammate, she might as well have been a giantess from the far reaches from the Dark Continent. But she pressed her height to her advantage and inspected his injured eye. She knew that he would never voice his pain out loud. Help might come from the Uchiha compound, sitting through judgement and vitriol that Obito's sharingan deserved to be placed with someone worthier of the clan ability.

Rin's parents were civilians. Their parents were civilians. Rin lacked the decorated pedigree of shinobi who were promoted past chunin. She had no special techniques to pass down. No bloodline ability to beget a new clan. She was at best, a competent medic. A decent fighter in a pinch. To her, an eye was an eye.

For Kakashi, the circumstances were different. He was the scion of the Hatake clan. She did not understand clan politics but she knew this. Kakashi could not ask the Uchiha for aid.

"Uchiha need doctors too." Kakashi had rasped on the first night, gathered around a small stick fire and heating gruel over the smoke. She remembered draping at least three cloaks on him because he'd shivered, as though he couldn't get warm enough, folded around a bowl of watery rice like a starving dog.

It was Minato who had insisted they sit down and share a meal, fill their stomachs with something hot even if it meant they threw it up later. The only thing she had been able to do was keep the eye clean and pus-free. She consoled herself with the knowledge that despite the circumstances, the transplant had been a success. The scar beneath her thumb unfortunate but Kakashi was very, _very_ lucky.

"There's got to be someone at the hospital who knows how to treat this."

Organ transfers were common during war. Between close relatives, it was easy. The village hospital kept meticulous records of compatible donors and patients. But she did not know anything about the transference of bloodline abilities between two non-relatives. By her estimate, she violated at least a dozen medical protocols when she'd replaced Kakashi's blinded eye. Such a thing was impossible, unheard of.

And slowly, it had dawned on her.

Minato, like Kakashi, was stalling. They both knew the risk of revealing Obito's sharingan to his clan. Her cheeks flamed when she realized how little she knew of the village she was determined to protect. It had been her fault. Her fault for being captured, her fault Obito died. If she hadn't been captured, Obito would have been alive.

When Kakashi spun his fanatical gaze upon her, she'd felt fear and resentment. She had dreamed of such moment many times, ever since she was assigned to Kakashi's team, turned it over and over in her head until the idea had transmuted itself into fantasy she could construct with her eyes closed.

Kakashi was looking at _her_. He saw _her_ and he needed _her_ help. And she had hated him for it. Why? Why look at her when he'd already confessed he did not and could not care for her?

Because they were a team.

It didn't matter Obito was dead. Kakashi wasn't dead. Minato wasn't dead and she wasn't dead.

As soon as they returned to the village, she had gone to the hospital. Nobody was surprised to see her. News traveled faster than flu in winter. Doctors on duty expressed their concern but she'd waved them off. She broke into the records room, rifling through file after file when a nurse caught her, face bruised with anger, her eyes deep from lost sleep.

"My teammate died." She'd burst out. "He was an Uchiha."

It had explained nothing but the nurse's face slackened into one of understanding. Her stomach twisted into knots. Rin hated lying. She hated she had to lie to people who had worked hard, was loyal to the village and _cared_. All for an eye Kakashi should never use. The eye hadn't protected Obito and he was an _Uchiha_.

And as soon as they came, she was ashamed of her thoughts. It hadn't been pity in the woman's eyes, it was compassion. They had all lost someone in the war. Every day, bodies were wheeled in, tagged and sent to the incinerator. Before closing the door behind her, the nurse simply knocked the correct files down with a sly grin, just because she thought it would make Rin's day a bit better.

She'd burst into messy tears. All the sorrow she had bottled up since Team Seven left its soul in the dirt of the Grass Country. Obito was more than a soldier of the Leaf. He had been her friend and she missed him very much.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of information. The Uchiha rarely deigned to visit the village hospital. Never for their sharingan. The First Hokage and the Second Hokage had wrote exclusively on tactics. They said Uchiha bodies had to be burned.

Thankfully, Kakashi's eye never showed any signs of infection. She assumed that he retained perception in his left eye though the chakra drain made it nearly worthless. Kakashi kept it covered up as a result. First behind the thick bandages and currently, his forehead protector. Everyone knew that the prodigy Kakashi received a debilitating injury when he fought against the Iwa. What they couldn't understand was why he refused donations of perfectly good eyes.

So Rin smiled and lied through her teeth. She told the well-wishers that Kakashi would come around. Someday, he might even be ready. She might be ready. No one needed to know.

Nothing changed. Kakashi killed and she healed.

"You're bleeding."

Kakashi grunted, shaking off her concern. He wiped his hand with a handful of grass, kicking the Iwa chunin for posterity. She winced.

"Kakashi." She placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and he reacted explosively. Only when he saw that it was her, just her, plain, old Rin, did his alarmed expression collapse into one of brittle recognition.

His legs gathered beneath him.

"Rin," He acknowledged in a voice on the precipice. "I'm fine."

She was beginning to hate that word. Fine, as though anything was fine. Only the metal-mongers were fine, rich in blood money. They were not fine, they were shinobi—they would never _be_ fine. But Kakashi would be fine, at least in body, if she could just get a good look at his eye.

"No you're not." She disagreed. Without Obito as a buffer, she had learned to assert herself. "Look."

Rin drew a surgical scalpel from her pouch, clean and shiny enough to eat from. She tilted it to offer him a glimpse of his reflection.

Kakashi's eye was bleeding, a thin gush of blood trickling down his scar soaking into the fabric. There was also something else. Rin had not had privilege of seeing a regular sharingan up close. The Uchiha were notoriously secretive of their bloodline abilities, they would have never found her enough of a threat to activate it in her presence. But Obito's eyes, warm and pulsating in the cup of her hand, she remembered clearly. Black on red, two perfectly formed commas seared deep in the red irises. The eyes she still felt when blood stained her hands. And Obito's empty eye socket when she brushed it closed.

Kakashi had told her, it was why he could never acknowledge her feelings. It wasn't fair. The war, it took too much. It just wasn't fair.

But her teammate was hurt. He was bleeding and that was something she could help with. There was more at stake than her unrequited crush. She could tell, even without touching, he was expending massive amount of chakra just to keep his borrowed eye open.

She attempted to shield it with her hand. As far as she knew, sharingan did not offer night vision and her sticky palms were better than nothing if only to keep Obito from staring out his lost eye. But Kakashi spurned her touch and pushed her away. His grip on the handle of the scalpel iron-clad as three commas in his sharingan warped and spiraled into a pinwheel black on red.

The black points blurred into branches and then there was a shape, one she had never seen before, solidifying just briefly and she _thought_ she saw the air ripple into the whirlpool of a jounin flak jacket. Chakra gathered, monstrous and impossible, as though her teammate was attempting chidori with his _eye_, when Kakashi's legs went from underneath him, pouring him in a boneless heap on top of the dead Iwa chunin.

Rin let out a small squeak as she slid down to her knees, pressing her fingers against his pulse point to make sure that he still breathed. To her relief, Kakashi's heartbeat was steady. It was Kakashi after all. _Ba_-Kashi as Obito would have called him.

She did not have time to waste. Rin dug her fingers into the blood puddle and smeared her thumb on a summoning scroll. A cheeky blue toadling appeared, in a cloud of smoke-edged chakra. Though nominally neutral, the toads were fond of Minato and his teacher Jiraiya and were a massive help to the war effort in Konoha.

Waving a tiny, webbed feet, the little toad took a moment to reorient itself.

"Tamonten forest, three kilometers west." She barked. "Find help, please. Tell them it's Kakashi."

Hours must have crawled by. She thought surely the sun had gone down and come up again in the time the toadling had gone. As Rin made the decision to attempt another summon, Kushina arrived in a storm of leaves, enough medical supplies for an open heart surgery clutched in her two fists.

After Obito's death, Minato shared the secrets of the Hiraishin with those closest to him. It was supposed to have been a surprise. At any rate, only sensei had enough chakra stores and control to attempt it more than once on the field. But she couldn't help but resent her teacher a little at the thought that if he had told them, if he had been there, things would have been different. Obito wouldn't have died.

She gave Kushina a quick hug and noticed that the older woman was pale, panicked grey eyes draining every last drop of color from her normally vibrant face. Instead of reacting with her usual anger, Kushina despaired when she saw Kakashi.

Between the two of them, they had enough chakra to jump-start Kakashi's recovery. While her teammate was wheeled off into a private room, she went to Minato and told her teacher everything.

Minato was grim. It was no small affair asking favor from the Uchiha clan. Especially when person asking was the candidate for the seat of a kage. Before, it wouldn't have mattered. Association with Obito allowed them insight into the clan no other villager was allowed. But even the meager handful of tolerance faded when Obito turned eleven, twelve, _thirteen_, without his eyes ever taking the blood-red shade. It pained her the Uchiha would never know Obito's worth beyond his cursed eyes.

Kushina put her fist through the wall.

"I'll ask Mikoto, even if it means dragging her out of the compound myself." She declared.

"She'll tell." Minato said promptly.

"Damn clan politics!"

"Kushina..."

"But we'll know first." Rin spoke up, fidgeting when all eyes rested on her. "Right?"

Minato did not like it. None of them liked it. But Kakashi had already signed himself out of the hospital against medical advice. He was holed up in his house and he had stank of blood, even to her whose abilities only came from experience.

Uchiha Mikoto was sent for but did not come immediately. She waited until sunset, her form illuminated by the brilliant orange and magenta of the sky when she knocked on the door.

Obito's second cousin once removed was beautiful with long black hair, heart-shaped face and night-black eyes all Uchiha possessed. There was a sense of melancholy about her that refused to slough off as she set her basket down, peeling off her slippers one by one before folding into Kushina's embrace. Sensing something amiss, Rin scooted between the Uchiha woman and Kakashi who was lying down with an ice pack balanced on his forehead. Though her eyes tracked the subtle shift, Uchiha Mikoto did not comment as she listened to Minato's explanation.

If she was surprised by Obito's sharingan, she did not show it. She raked Kakashi's still form with a brief glance and nodded.

"May I?" she asked politely, hovering before her teammate's face.

Kakashi swallowed but nodded once in agreement.

Uchiha Mikoto gathered chakra into her hands and Rin could not figure out why the movements seemed so familiar until she burst out, "You're a medic!"

"Yes," Uchiha Mikoto answered without missing a beat. "I took up the art when I realized I would not be allowed to remain with my jounin team because of my marriage. This way, I could continue to fight."

Kakashi's eye opened. Everyone else startled at the oppressive wave of chakra, like a rabid thing slobbering its warning from behind a rusted fence. Rin could feel the sharingan roll, drinking what little energy left in her teammate to a single point in his pupil that radiated into a three-armed shuriken.

Uchiha Mikoto sighed and leaned back, a slump to her shoulders like a teacher disappointed by a talented but a lazy pupil.

"I was afraid of this." She said finally, folding her hands across her lap. "Jounin Hatake." She asked, "When did you start experiencing pain in your left eye?"

The possessive did nothing to lessen the tension. Kakashi's hand twitched, fighting the urge to slide his forehead protector down his face.

"Yesterday morning," he grunted in admission and she seethed at the realization she had not noticed, at all. "But it's always like that. My body, it's not used to it."

"No, I suppose not."

"You can't take my eye." Kakashi said flatly.

"Kakashi," Minato chided. "Please excuse him. Obito's death, he took it badly."

"Very well." Uchiha Mikoto commented without any inflection. After a moment of consideration, she said, "What I'm about to say next must not leave this room."

Night was falling. Crows cawed the last of their goodbyes before parting from the rafters, crickets, mice and owls swiftly taking the post they abandoned. Rin desperately wanted to close her ears. She did not want to hear it. Knowledge was the cudgel that determined their safety or death. She did not want to know what she could have done to save her friend.

"The Uchiha," Uchiha Mikoto continued, "have always prided themselves on their dojutsu. In recent years, it has become a mark of status within the clan. But it has not always been this way. It is said, the first Uchiha achieved the sharingan when his mother died during childbirth. The sharingan is considered a sign of mourning."

Kakashi flinched.

"There is a variant of the sharingan called the mangekyo. It is power which can only be achieved at a great price. If it had been a technique, it would be a kinjutsu—a forbidden technique. But the mangekyo cannot be learned, it is given. When the bond between us and our loved ones is severed forcibly through death."

Her hands flew up to her mouth.

"That's horrible!"

Uchiha Mikoto pinned her with disapproval, lips thinned and almost bloodless.

"The mangekyo signals the beginning of an end. In exchange for power, the neural nerves are flooded with chakra. It is as though," She paused, "I have heard it explained as filling a glass with a river. It cannot be done. It erodes the paths and leads to an eventual death."

Kushina voiced her denial.

_Kakashi_—her _Kakashi_, would die? But Kakashi sat up, chin held proudly at his death sentence.

Uchiha Mikoto shook her head.

"This is why we discourage our children from befriending those from outside the clan. Our children first give their loyalties to their parents, to their family and finally friends. If they form a deep connection with an outsider, the clan cannot guarantee their safety. War never ends. Only few children are born to our clan per generation, each precious. Even fewer survive. In our hearts, the sharingan is no more our greatest weapon than our darkest shame.

"When the village asked for its sacrifice, the clan elders decreed Obito be our offering. They believed him a burden. His parentage," she frowned, "Was not ideal."

Kakashi tried to interrupt, "What do you mean not _ideal_..."

A pair of sharingan cut through his attempt. Color warred in the Uchiha woman's eyes, at times appearing to be wine red and in others, pitch black.

"Obito was an orphan. He was free to give his loyalties to you."

Kakashi looked like he wanted to throw up.

"But he had a cousin. They were like brothers once. This afternoon, Uchiha Shisui completed his mangekyo sharingan."


	2. Chapter 2

"No," Rin interrupted. "I don't understand."

She repeated herself in case she hadn't been heard. No one stepped forward to correct her ignorance—no one seemed to want to. She felt that there was a vital piece of information she was missing from the dialogue. A salient detail she was not privy to because she was a girl with no prospects, no great name and no bones tied to the root of the village.

Her parents were civilians. Their parents and their parents were civilians, farmers and merchants from the land of the slow-flowing rivers. She didn't know who Uchiha Shisui was but she had seen, her entire team and several classmates had seen, the _adults_ had seen but never remarked upon, Obito bullied by his clansmen, ridiculed as the butt of every blue-blooded joke.

An arm of camaraderie often turned to trap when Uchiha boys, similar in age but unfamiliar, clan apprentices, chunin, genjutsu masters, dripped word after poisonous word into the curve of Obito's flushed ears. The Uchiha didn't give a shit about Obito. It was laughable how they recanted their indifference and laid claim to him when he wasn't. even. there.

"You're lying." Kakashi shook his head once, twice, like a stag trying to throw a hound from his proud shoulders. "No, Obito was your clansmen. This means you would have known. You _knew_ he was alive."

_Oh,_ Rin thought startled. But they left Obito behind.

Obito didn't die where they buried him in the land of grass far away from home. A passerby, maybe an Iwa scout sent to retrieve the bodies, tipped off by the scrabbling in the earth, raised her Uchiha teammate from his grave and killed him. He died alone. His death had been for nothing; his sacrifice meant nothing. Rin could have saved him and the truth became the thing that crawled out the drain at night, sour, misshapen and gross.

She was about to throw up.

Laughter strangled her throat.

"Obito is alive?"

One by one, her team looked away in shame. Shame was not what she was looking for. It wasn't what she needed. She wanted answers, answers from people she loved and trusted but thought so little of her as to shield her from reality.

Rin was no clan heiress to be coddled and guided into greatness. She was Team Minato. Her first kill was using a taijutsu technique she learned at the academy. She decided to bite the proverbial exploding tag and turned to the one person who knew.

"Is Obito alive?"

Uchiha Mikoto raised an eyebrow at her directness though she hadn't for Kakashi's outbursts. The Uchiha were one of the four noble houses of Konoha, a great honor, an unforgivable one. Rin was only a soldier, a chunin, and a field medic. When Uchiha Mikoto parted her mouth, Rin shrieked, "IS HE ALIVE?!"

She could have heard a cricket blink in the silence that followed.

"He is dead." The woman said baldly, face smooth as stone. "Uchiha Obito is dead."

At first, she thought the wretched scream was _hers_. Bile scoured her mouth. She was the one who made the decision Obito could not be saved. It was her fault, all of it. And he had been alive. She should have been the one to kill him.

But it was Kakashi who let loose a lion's roar and flooded the room with killing intent. Kakashi, whose promise to protect her came from the lips of a dying boy who was _stupid_ enough to love her, to trust her, to care for her and to die for her. The surge of chakra shocked her into stillness. Too quick for anyone to react, he was already twelve steps ahead, lightning shackled to his bony wrists.

"Kakashi!"

Uchiha Mikoto was a mother, a housewife and a clan head. She was not bound by the same creed they were; she did not hesitate when sidestepping Kakashi's attack, her arms opening in a dancer's sweep to scatter stars from her floral sleeves.

The blades fell apart in midair, spreading into a mesh of spider silk over Kakashi's sharingan-mad eye. Uchiha Mikoto was born Uchiha. She knew secrets her teammate was only beginning to discover.

But she was not Kakashi.

There was a game she played when she was young. Back when she was at the Academy.

Supplies were limited in war and Konoha knew her wars well. She had survived two and hoarded her resources like an aging fishwife would her coins, knowing that the fragile treaty with Suna could shatter at any second, knowing Iwa despised her children, Kiri envied them and Kumo thought her ripe for taking.

Metal was precious. Once a week, a cart passed by her house, asking for donations in scrap metal and pans. Anything that could be melted down to forge a blade.

Instead of kunai, she grew up dodging broad-veined leaves. The goal was to mark every leaf as hers. Most of her classmates preferred the katon because of its wide range. But the katon was destructive and often created a sudden updraft, letting leaves pass harmlessly through licks of flames.

Rin personally preferred the suiton. She wasn't the best at nature transformations but she understood the goal was to mark her targets. The day she was introduced to her new teammates, Minato asked them to play leaf-tag and punched a tree. As predicted, Obito spat fire. The fire fizzled to smoke when water swept over them and she had grinned because nobody in her year could beat her.

Kakashi was different; he'd never been anything less than a ruthless tactician.

He cut through the strings like it was nothing. The skin on his fingers paled and sloughed into diamond scales. Rin could hear birds singing, thousands of them, all inside the small apartment Kakashi called his home.

Years later, when looking back, she would hear a thrush in the trees and remember this. Every time a sparrow sang or a rooster crowed to his heart's content, she'd set off an exploding seal to make them stop.

Kakashi kept going.

The dog seal's open palm sharpened into a spear thrust and Uchiha Mikoto threw herself backwards, chidori slicing through the black veil of her hair. She shaped her hands from rat to boar, biting back ember between her teeth. And at that range, Rin knew she would not miss.

The earth trembled.

Walls shook, floor vibrating as the furniture beat a fraught staccato against the grain. For a moment, she thought it was an earthquake and braced herself against whatever doton the Uchiha activated beneath her heel.

But it was not Uchiha Mikoto whose sharingan twisted into a three-sided shuriken. Rin gasped when she saw it. She recognized it. The death spiral tugged at the edges of the Uchiha's being—it was over.

Minato struck them apart and grabbed Kakashi from behind.

"Rin! Now!"

Instinctively, she leapt to her teacher's aid. She tore up the floorboards skidding to a stop. Too much chakra in her feet—a rookie mistake. Something her jounin teammate would have pointed out if he'd been in his right mind.

Sensei hissed and she yelped as Kakashi ran lightning through his coils. His sclera burned white and lit up his thick skull from inside out like a morbid paper lantern.

Rin uncapped a syringe with her teeth and jammed it in the muscle. If Kakashi would not stay still, she would make him. Just to remind him he was not alone. He did not have to do everything alone. The Uchiha had hid Obito from them and whether he liked it or not, she had just as much right to hate them too.

"Let, me, _go_."

"I will not." Their teacher promised him.

Kakashi choked back a sob, sucking oxygen like a hooked trout. He fell to the floor as his limbs turned to jelly and she struck him in the shoulder, again, again, and again.

"Stupid!" She yelled, driving the needle in the floor with her fist. "You are so stupid!"

She liked to think that he agreed. There was something in his eyes that hadn't been there before. Shot through the cornea like a wormy parasite.

It was like he finally tasted impossibility and found it bitter. Minato told her, everyone grieved differently. Hot droplets seared her collarbone and she understood them to be tears.

Obito was dead.

An arm dropped around her shoulder and she leaned, drawn to the warmth and the smell of sunshine even though it was dusk. Her teacher hummed, almost absentmindedly, his expression incredibly kind as he combed through the feathers of Kakashi's silvery-grey hair, wiping the boy's face clean with his bare palms.

She cried.

She didn't stop for a long time.

+++++2+++++

She answered her teacher with a wobbly, watery expression. Not very reassuring at all. Her cheeks heating up as she wiped her face, suddenly conscious of what she was doing, how she must look to everyone else.

Sniffling, Rin sat with her head lowered, waiting for her nose to drip-dry wondering why she couldn't muster the strength to grab the roll of toilet paper just a koi-length away behind her; ashamed and feeling like she could die from the embarrassment of her outburst.

Oblivious to her dilemma, Minato addressed the woman in front of them anchored with emerald chains, released only when Kushina came back with a half-hearted scowl and an armful of refreshments. She was surprised that Kakashi kept anything in his fridge at all. Rin had been starting to believe that the boy existed purely on stupidity and soldier pills.

She squeaked when Kushina dropped beside her, squishing her between Minato. But she did not move to get out of the way. It was fine—it made her feel _safe_.

"Mikoto," Her teacher asked, cradling Kakashi's head in his lap. "Please explain why you tried to kill my student."

Rin sartled.

Uchiha Mikoto seemed surprised he had said anything at all.

"Observe." The Uchiha said as she slid a kunai forward.

It was standard issue, sharp, metal. Rin had seen a thousand like it before, melted, bent, and broken. But she had never seen it stretched like a coil, pulled until it met end to end, the iron blanched with the strain of its new shape.

Minato looked around at the walls, at the floor, the disarray of furniture and far-flung books. He took a cassette on the floor and shook it until a tangle of tape fell through the bottom spinning bronze contrails in the air.

"What was that technique?"

"I don't know."

And Rin immediately thought—_liar_, black and pitched with hatred, because she saw the Uchiha's eyes go round and red like a leopard with scattered spots; a leopard that had seen movement below and slithered into the leaves wondering, how could she have it? How could she take it?

"The very nature of the mangekyo sharingan**[1]** makes it rare. We do not speak of it openly."

Minato's expression was cold and Rin flinched, remembering that her teacher was the Yellow Flash of Konoha. Bingo books warned enemy ninja to run in the other direction. At that moment, she would not have traded places with Uchiha Mikoto for anything in the world.

"You told us Uchiha Shisui _completed_ his mangekyo."

"Shisui is not Obito." The woman corrected sharply. "His abilities were never in doubt; his parentage cannot be denied."

Blue eyes narrowed.

"Obito's parents were unacceptable."

"Means one of 'em wasn't Uchiha." Kushina stated, her voice incredibly flat.

"A poor choice of words." Uchiha Mikoto demurred but she did not deny it. It fit in with why Obito was treated so poorly by his clansmen. Clans took bloodline very seriously. For the Uchiha, marrying outside the family, whatever Obito's circumstances were, must have been tantamount to betrayal.

"Is that why he was ostracized?" Minato asked, echoing her thoughts.

"That is the simplest explanation." The Uchiha woman agreed and she leaned forward, intent on taking the kunai back.

"What is the long one?"

Killing intent poured off her teacher in waves and Uchiha Mikoto eyed the twisted kunai, silently balancing the risks and rewards of claiming the proof of Kakashi's mangekyo sharingan. She relented with a sigh, a leopard with only feathers and air between her claws.

"The shinobi of Obito's line were great warriors. Misled in their love and friendship perhaps, but they were once the pride of this village. It is a shame," she continued, "that they met their ends in the Second Shinobi War. His mother, may she rest in peace, did not live long after his birth."

The Uchiha's words made her hair rise on end and she didn't know _why_. The way she spoke of Obito's parents was beyond disrespectful. It was _vile_.

"Then it's true?" Kushina interrupted. She had dug crescents all the way up to her knees. Against her fair skin, they became bruises that mapped her bone like tattoos. "All of it? Obito..."

"Yes."

"But you spoke of bonds." Minato said harshly. "Between Obito and Uchiha Shisui. And," He looked down, at Kakashi who was curled in his lap. "Obito and Kakashi."

Annoyance flickered past the Uchiha's face. Like a veil-tailed fish in a murky water. So fast that she thought she'd imagined it.

"The basic theory of chakra, Namikaze-san, is that it can be traced back to a single source. The shinju, the sacred tree from which all creatures with chakra descend, connects us to each other. A mother to her child, a man to his lover, a friend to another, Jounin Hatake to my cousin."

"You know how he died."

And so it ran full circle into the thing that had brought them together.

Kakashi always reminded them that their lives did not allow for mistakes. He used to look down on Obito because he was soft and cheerful and naïve, hardly a ninja material. If it were not for his enthusiasm and name, she doubted that he would have made chunin.

In reality, Obito had been a competent ninja. Given time, he could have been good. Grown into his eyes and flailing limbs. But war was no place to raise children, her parents said. Obito, in many ways, had been a child. They all were. Children were expected to make mistakes. Except this time, her mistake cost Obito his life. And it felt terrible, having said it out loud. It had nothing to do with grief, anger or fear. It was just gnawing awfulness she would take to her grave.

She shook when Uchiha Mikoto said acid-tongued,

"We received no notes. No ransom. Nothing to begin the search."

"You could have _tried_."

"How?" The Uchiha asked, spreading her hands. "We are at war. Any attempt at retrieving the body would be _treason_."

Because the Uchiha were one of Konoha's noble clans, greatly honored and feared. They would never be allowed to set foot outside during wartime for the fear of other villages stealing their eyes. "The mangekyo proves the legitimacy of Jounin Hatake's claim. It would not have turned otherwise. But it will not stop the clan elders from demanding its return."

"What do you suggest we do?" Minato asked stiffly.

"Make him give it up. _Burn it_. Do not let him keep it."

Like how they burned incense before the ancestor tablet on New Year. To wish for good fortune and banish evil spirits. But Obito wasn't an evil spirit. Why would he bother reach out from the pure land to haunt an eye? If Rin had been the one left behind, she would have been so mad she wouldn't have bothered to look at them.

"And if he doesn't?"

"There will be warnings." Uchiha Mikoto suggested. "Nothing untoward. Little things like a misplaced cup or a missing scroll. A broken hinge, a cracked window. Enough to make others wary perhaps, enough that he would be alone. It wouldn't take much. It never does. We are shinobi. There are no shortages of blade for hire."

"Are you _threatening_ my student?" Minato demanded, outraged.

"We cannot risk the mangekyo falling into enemy hands." The woman said matter-of-fact. "You know why it must be this way. My clan cannot afford another avenger."

"And what about Uchiha Shisui?"

"He understands."

"That you sacrificed his only family for this?"

Rin gasped.

But it was not her teacher the Uchiha reproached for his rudeness. She turned to Kushina in disappointment, brows furrowed like she'd seen a dirty puppy piddle on her thousand-thread Suna rug.

"You are an Uzumaki." The woman disapproved. "He should know better."

She let the rebuke sink in. Rin half-expected Kushina to be furious at the insult, hair wild and incandescent with rage. But she shrank back, her face pale like it had never felt the caress of sunlight or fresh air. Behind her, Minato lifted his hand to rest on Kushina's shoulder.

It occurred to her that Kushina was also from a prominent clan. Minato was not.

"Your actions will bring about the second Senju Extermination." Uchiha Mikoto said gravely. "Do you think it an accident that Kiri culls her children so diligently even now after house of storms and snow?"

Rin gritted her teeth noting that the woman had done it again, spoken in words with two meanings. She'd always been good at school but standardized education meant much of Konoha's history had been stripped from textbooks for the fear of insulting one clan or another. The Senju were a great clan once, much reduced since the days of the first Hokage. A Senju extermination? How was that possible? Two of Konoha's kages were Senju. Senju Tsunade, slug princess, first among medical nin, was her role model.

Immersed in her thoughts, she did not notice when the discussion wore itself out.

"Mikoto," Kushina asked hesitantly. "Will you tell them?"

Uchiha Mikoto's black eyes softened towards her friend.

"I will see myself out."

The woman slid slippers on her feet, steps slow and measured as though she was counting the exact number she would need to reach home. Rin thought about was the Uchiha's hands and how they had sparked green with chakra before drawing a kunai. And then she was gone.

She turned to her teacher. She, she had to make sure; she thought she might go insane if she didn't know.

"Was she right? Is Obito...?"

Minato squeezed his eyes shut.

"I don't know."

"_Minato_." Kushina gasped, mouth falling open.

"We can make the report." Her teacher said finally. "If he survived for this long, it's likely he had help."

But who? Who would be brazen enough to keep a Konohan from her borders? Kusa was timid after years of conflict. Ame rarely ventured from their homes. It had to be the Iwa. The Iwa did this. But could she be sure? She thought about the exploding tag in her medical bag, folded carefully into a strip of paper.

The Kamizuru would pay handsomely for information of their lost chunin. Somewhere in Iwa, there must be a Kakashi and Rin waiting for their own Obito.

Right?

"Sensei," She asked, "What is the Senju Extermination**[2]**?"

Minato grimaced.

"Aha, it's not a very good story."

"It's what they called the First Shinobi War." Kushina answered her, blowing her nose on the puffy sleeve of her sundress. "A lot of people got jealous of the Senju because of their bloodline ability. Before they knew it, the clan was cut in half. The First practically died from heartbreak but it didn't stop there."

Kushina's eyes were dull and far away. Staring at something in the distance no one else could see. It reminded her of the patients at the hospital. People who had been in their beds for a long time. Crippled and maimed, their entire world was the restricted wing on the sixth floor and what brought them there in the first place.

Her hand shot out and gripped Kushina's hand. Kushina squeezed back gratefully and continued.

"But it wasn't just the Senju. Anyone with a bloodline ability or a secret technique ended up with targets on their backs. Families gone, compounds emptied, it was awful. The survivors changed their names and married into other families. Most clans in the Fire Country can trace roots back to at least one Senju ancestor."

"But Lady Tsunade…"

Kushina shrugged.

"She's the last one; unless she's got a kid stashed somewhere."

"The books always said that the Uchiha hated the Senju."

Her hand squeezed along with her heartstrings.

"Do you believe that kiddo?"

She didn't know what to believe. Because the ninja rules said to look beneath the underneath.

It made it hard to remember to look _up_.

+++++2+++++

Kakashi woke an hour later.

Drowsy in contemplation, she laid back on the couch and listened as he argued with their teacher. There was a bucket stuck in the ceiling. She would have to remind him to take it down before it fell and broke someone's skull. Likely Kakashi's. She snorted.

"You have to rest. Obito won't..."

"I have to go find him."

"How? He could be anywhere."

"I'll find him."

She sighed.

_Stupid, stubborn Kakashi._

"We're still at war."

"You can give me orders to go out to the front."

"You know I won't do that."

"But you need me out there."

"You're injured."

"I'm fine!"

_And where did you get your medical license? _She thought.

"There is a kill order for every Konohan that appears near Iwa borders." Minato reasoned. "When the war ends, we can look for him together."

When the war ends. She silently traced the words. What was that even like? She was barely out of her diapers when the second war ended. Sometimes she wondered what she would even do with peace.

A frantic tapping on the glass made her get up. Frowning, Kushina went to the window and slid it open.

Dawn had barely gripped the horizon as a hawk tumbled into the giant mess of Kakashi's apartment. It seemed lost as it landed on the floor, hooked claws catching against the weave of the tatami mats. Chirping nervously, it jumped onto an upturned coffee table and held a leg out where she spied a scroll tied with a black string.

Minato swept into the room shadowed by Kakashi who was suffering from a terrible case of bedhead. He appeared sullen, eye puffy but resigned as Rin bullied him into an exam.

"The Uchiha." Kushina confirmed, skimming through the scroll.

Kakashi tensed.

"Let's go."

"Tch, not so fast brat."

Lightning chakra snapped at her palms and she took them off, blowing on them hastily to ease the sting. She glared at Kakashi but he didn't seem to notice, static raising his messy hair to new degrees as his jaws popped under his mask, grinding his molars until she could hear cracking bone.

"Why?"

His question was short, blunted, and sounded more like a sucking wound. Even as she brushed the blisters back in her skin, she stood still, afraid that anything might set off her frazzled teammate.

"We need to prepare." Minato explained. "This is politics. It won't make a difference to us but it will for them." The man pulled Kakashi aside and pushed him back towards his room. "Go on, get dressed. You are the head of the Hatake clan."

"I am the only member of the Hatake clan." Kakashi growled. "We take this to court, we win."

"But then they have no reason to tell us where Obito is."

"I don't need their help. I'll find him myself!"

"How?"

Minato was serene. He did like to find teaching moments in the most outrageous moments, her teacher. And Kakashi was failing so badly she wanted to grab him by the ears and shake him until common sense fell out. It was something she should have done weeks ago wandering the borders of Fire and Earth. They were his teammates. Didn't that mean anything?

But she kept her hands to herself. Because Kakashi had shocked her. Worse, he did not even notice.

"Obito was chunin."

"I'd rather not leave this to chance."

She could see the gears turning in his head. Kakashi conceded with a sharp nod.

"Good," Minato said brightly, clapping his hands. "I know we don't have much time but it would be best if the Uchiha see you as a clan head rather than a jounin captain."

When Kakashi disappeared into his room, Minato told Kushina, "I'd better get ready too."

Kushina crossed her arms but didn't say anything.

"What should I do?" Rin asked.

Her teacher looked surprised as though it was obvious what Rin should be doing. But she didn't know. She wasn't clan. Her parents weren't even ninja. She felt her heart sink because this was clan matter. So she was surprised when he said, "You're coming with us."

"I am?"

"She is? Minato you moron—" Kushina pulled on his hair in frustration. "Well," She said, catching Rin's eye. "She'll need to wash up first. Let me walk you home." And pushed her out the door.

It was like stepping out into a new world.

She'd been on in the field for weeks. She hadn't the time to catch up or even take a shower in the time it took to find her teacher then Kakashi. Even the sunlight seemed different as it poured through the leaves, lovely and golden whereas the borderlands had been parched for water.

Every tree and blade of grass had been burnt to the roots months ago for the fear of an ambush. Konoha was just so beautiful. And loud. She held her hands to her ears, not quite sure if she wanted to listen to the early morning bustle or let it be. The only people out on the streets were merchants and shop owners setting their wares. Rin stretched surreptitiously, imagining that one or two pairs of scurrying feet belonged to her parents.

Birds cheeped from the undergrowth and she cheeped, annoyed with their song, bright plumage and existence. A man staggered past them in a drunken haze, breaking out into a run as soon as Kushina glared and shooed him off the streets.

"You needed to tell me something?"

"Aha," the redhead laughed, high-pitched and nervous. "You're so smart Rin!" After a moment of indecision, she declared loudly. "It's a terrible idea dammit. To go I mean, not because you're weak. Minato and Kakashi, they're idiots." She amended, "Okay, they're super smart but that's why they're idiots. You get what I'm saying?"

Rin bit her lip.

"Because I'm not clan."

"Exactly!" They stopped in the middle of the road. A boy on his bicycle swerved around them with an epithet. Kushina gave him the finger. "You're the easiest to come after." She continued as though nothing had happened. "The bastards won't see the strong, fearless chunin, they see a target. And you'll prove every one of them wrong but you don't have to."

"Um..."

Standing in front of Kushina, Rin did not feel strong or fearless.

"I... I wasn't born here ya know? Not in Konoha. I was a refugee. Uzushio was about the collapse and Konoha took me in because I'm an Uzumaki and they figured they could use me or some shit." Kushina grabbed her shoulders. "But you Rin, you're different. You're special—too good to get caught up in this."

That was the problem wasn't it? Everyone had an image of her they wanted to preserve. They thought she was a medic-nin in need of a protection they never even asked if she deserved it.

Rin hugged her.

"Thank you Kushina." She beamed, her cheeks aching. "But you don't need to worry. I'll be fine."

Kushina sniffled.

"Considering the blockheads on your team, I doubt it."

"I, I will think on this." Rin promised shyly. They both knew what it meant. Kushina muttered 'stupid' before slapping her lightly on the back which of course had her almost sprawled on the pavement.

"Kushina?" She asked as she hopped to a stop.

"Eeh?"

"What would you have done if you were in Kakashi's place. What would your clan have said?"

Her answer was prompt.

"I would give it up."

+++++2+++++

"There you are! You were supposed to have been back weeks ago—do you know how worried your parents were?!"

Her great-grandmother greeted her from the yard where she was feeding a small flock of white-feathered chicken. At the ripe old age of eighty, she was as spry as ever. Having outlived most of her children, she spent her time helping at her parents' shop or doing chores around the house. She had never approved of Rin's career choice and the old woman's face wrinkled like a brown walnut as she tiptoed past the gates, still shell-shocked in returning to civilian life. "Well?" Her great-grandmother demanded. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Obito is gone."

She didn't know why she answered. Gone, she said, instead of dead because in her mind, Obito's presence lingered like chips of nail polish under her cuticle, just out of reach. Enough that she knew about it, saw it, but couldn't touch it. She ground her knuckles into her gummy eyes, daring the woman to say something, anything at all.

Her great-grandmother's face slackened in confusion.

"Who?"

She laughed; she couldn't help it.

"Do you even care? Do you even know where I've been all this time?"

"You haven't been home in a month." The old woman said sourly. "For all we know, you might have been dead."

"But I _wasn't_!" Rin stammered. She always did this. Belittling her contributions to the village. Measuring blocks of bean curd against mission allowance as though it meant something. "I was out there, fighting while all of you were..."

"What in spirits has gotten into you?" Her great-grandmother interrupted. "Wars never stop. It's enough that we bring money into this village but you have to go out there, a girl your age! Playing war games like you're ninja."

"I can't do nothing!" Rin argued.

"And look where it got your friend." The old woman snorted. "You'll see. Nothing good comes out of running with those hooligans." She nodded at the passing of shadows overhead. It could have been birds or jounin reporting for duty; it could have been Anbu. Lifting a snowy eyebrow, she demanded, "Well? Aren't you going to wash up? Your parents received new shipments from Kiri and they'll need help if they're going to sell the lot before the inspectors come."

Rin felt chilled.

"It's not a game. Not to me."

"You are a young lady." Her great-grandmother warned. "There is no place for you in that world."

And it was true because _that_ world was filled with clans and bloodlines and individuals with extraordinary abilities.

"Then I'll change that world!" She yelled. "I am a chunin of Konoha. I will make it so that everyone has a place!"

Her hand slipped into a ram seal. It was exhilarating how fast she could run, the chakra on the soles of her feet scratching wood all the way up to her room. She could hear her great-grandmother in the yard but didn't listen. There was no time for a proper wash; she barely got her face wet and her hair tied before jumping off her bed.

She opened the closet and tugged her chunin uniform off the hangers. Not the weather-beaten spare she used on the field but cloth and fabric for village ceremonies or ambassadorial visits. The collar was itchy and stiff, not yet broken in. She had never worn it before. No, she wore it when she thought Obito was dead and she swallowed, crushing her tears against the back of her hand.

The stairs creaked. She straightened her forehead protector and breathed out to Kakashi's front door.

"Well?" She demanded, half-in-jest, half-scared.

Kakashi shrugged but didn't keep his eyes from crinkling. She smiled back at him, cheeks flush with more than simple excitement as she took a step back, allowing him space. He looked so handsome in his clan colors. In the grey hakama and black haori, he moved like a young lordling rather than a blooded jounin, a spot of diamond in the rough, events of last night smothered in silk. She noticed that their teacher had also put in work taming the wild crest of his hair and gave him a thumbs up. It was something Obito might have done.

Minato hugged them from behind, wrapping his arms around their shoulders.

"Let's do this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[1]** Mangekyo Sharingan
> 
> Confession time.
> 
> I've changed the trigger for the mangekyo sharingan. It's overpowered to begin with but how the entire transformation is based off the trauma of seeing your loved one die is circumstantial at best. Does the grief not count for delivery?
> 
> As explained above, in this world people form relations/bonds with one another kind of like the red string of fate. the closer you are to a certain individual, the stronger the bond and stronger the backlash when it unexpectedly snaps.
> 
> **[2]** Senju Extermination
> 
> What it says on the tin. The Senju were already powerful when the five shinobi nations were founded. They bought more fear and jealousy with the capture of tailed beasts with the Mokuton bloodline ability. During the first shinobi war, the Senju were hunted down and killed. Along with them, dozens of other bloodlines were wiped out ensuring that no clan would again possess monopoly of the shinobi nation. Survivors buried their names and married into other families. Senju Tsunade is the last known individual to openly carry the name.


	3. Chapter 3

All actions had a purpose. The Uchiha kept the peace with the Senju by striking a delicate balance. Nothing was left to chance. Hatake's eye was an impossibility. It disturbed her. 

Mikoto flicked the blood from her neck, gently twisting her hair against the cut tassels to make them neat. She had been thinking about having it cut. Once, her hair had been a testament to her skill and pride. But pride often begat a downfall. In her mind's eye, she saw the glimmer of a new dawn. Even the gods could not begrudge her the change.

As she exited Hatake's apartment, four attendants pared themselves from the shadows and knelt at her feet. As her honor guard, Ikkaku took the lead position. At her left was her body servant, Usuda, dove feathers tucked behind his ear, who quickly shrugged the basket onto one elbow with a gnawed expression.

"_Ane-ue_." Usuda said respectfully before she cut him off.

"Not here." She glanced back at Jounin Hatake's house, unable to shake the unease from her bones. Outwardly, she remained calm and collected but Usuda had served her since they were children.

"Trouble?"

Usuda growled when an Anbu landed dramatically on the roof opposite, staring down through a painted smile.

"Only on days that end with 'y'." She replied pleasantly. "Shall we?"

"Of course." Usuda lowered his head, bending at a perfect ninety-degree angle. She considered ordering him to raise his head. But she was no longer the naïve six-year-old upset at the beating her servant received. Usuda was a liaison between an Uchiha father and an outsider. Since the Uchiha counted their kin in the distaff line**[1]**, Usuda was no blood to them. If it were not for his sharingan eyes, he would have been given away as a foundling. Or-god-forbid, left to be raised by his _mother_.

"Mikoto-sama." Usuda interrupted her steam of thought. "There is news."

"Very well." She allowed. The Anbu lost his advantage when he emerged from the shadows. "How is he?"

"Angry." Usuda admitted, voice hushed as though announcing a shocking thing. "Confused. He looks for..."

"Obito." She sighed, giving name to a boy she once knew.

"Yes, but I cannot understand why."

"They were cousins after all. It is natural his presence... lingers."

Ikkaku returned to report the presence of a crowd ahead.

"We should go around." Her clansman counseled.

"No," She decided. "We must appear as though everything is fine."

Ikkaku tensed. She might as well have told him everything was _not_ fine. But after the amount of chakra Hatake released, Mikoto doubted that it could be seen as anything other than killing intent. And she, a housewife, an Uchiha, had been seen in the middle.

Kushina had asked for a favor and she had given it. There was no time to dwell.

"Mikoto-sama." Usuda urged.

"Not now."

A low whine grated his throat.

The Anbu stalked them through the stars. Never close though always within sight. He kept a respectful enough distance; he might have even been Root.

Her eyes narrowed.

The Sandaime was an old man. His word, it seemed, no longer held weight. Others of the Elder Council, obstinate fools they were, remembered only the disdain their mentor had held for them and not Kagami whose death weighed less than a handful of cinders in their eyes. The Senju-Uchiha alliance was failing.

Ikkaku and Hanmo went ahead in a whirl of motion as Usuda fell behind her to signify her rank. Mebuki melted back into the shadows. She would have to keep an eye on her.

It never hurt to be careful. Even now when she was married to the official head of the Uchiha clan, she could never purge the feeling that she was being watched. Her paranoia was the one thing Usuda could not carry for her.

"Of course people are watching." Her mother berated her every time she mentioned it. "Your blood is marked by greatness. Keep your back straight. Be proud of what you are."

It did not mean she had to like it.

Ikkaku and Hanmo were waiting at the gates. They exchanged places with guards who disappeared into the night. Mikoto was surprised to see that past dinnertime, the streets were full. People with bowed heads passing whispered conversations like cattle chewing cud.

She felt a passing scorn at seeing her clansmen gathered so transparently. They knew that Shisui awoke his mangekyo but did not understand its significance. And this was the right way. The correct way. The knowledge of the mangekyo belonged with the elders of the clan, not common rabble.

Her footsteps quickened. Despite Kushina's warnings, she had been ill-prepared for the folded pinwheel stamped in Hatake's eyes.

Madara's line was cursed. Uzumaki Mito had sworn his blood would never bear fruit when she swallowed the Kyuubi and cut a stillbirth from her womb nine months after—Obito should have been an impossibility; his mangekyo was an impossibility.

They should have never let the Senju raise one of their own. The Senju had been slaughtered the first time they fatally attempted to tie the Uchiha to their destiny. Only Tsunade was left brave enough to keep her family's name. They should have known better than to think it could be different with Obito.

The Will of Fire should have been theirs.

Fugaku received her as she entered the house with a soft apology. She was glad she had been able to warn Uruchi ahead of time. Itachi mentioned innocently that the fat woman with nary a fleck of red in her eyes had come by to set the table and wondered if he could play with her granddaughter, Izumi, if he had the chance.

"Another time dear." Itachi did not press. He was a brilliant child. Quiet, contemplative and thoughtful, free of the competitive fire most boys possessed at his age.

Her son had been born on a full moon. Too much water, the midwife complained after seeing him safely delivered, swaddled and red-faced from the pains of birth. Uchiha were fire.

She turned to her husband.

"I must pray."

A sudden knock to the door heralded the presence of Uchiha Gentarou. She felt his chakra seep through the wood and saw Usuda, stiff-backed, open the door with a curt answer.

"Good evening, Gentarou-sama."

"Usuda. Lady Grandmother requests Mikoto's presence."

Her gaze traveled to her husband and he nodded. She felt utterly resentful that she no longer was tired for seeking his permission even though she was his wife, not an invalid. Their clansmen sought her before the village doctors, even if it meant carrying their mangled limbs across their shoulders. Itachi murmured a short farewell, fingers knotting around the hem of her floral dress.

"Do not stay up too late."

"What a fine wife you make." Gentarou purred mockingly. She scalded her former teammate with a look.

"Speak your business Gentarou."

Gentarou eyed her husband with something close to lazy contempt.

"Your absence has not gone unnoticed and neither was the killing intent at Jounin Hatake's residence." He answered as he accompanied them to the community hall, filing the edge of his nails against the leather thimble of his thumb. "This isn't like the last time."

"I know my duties." She said coolly.

"Good." Despite his tone, Gentarou did not mean harm. He was one of the few who had voted against her retirement when her betrothal to Fugaku was announced. But the weapons and straps aside his Uchiha armor reminded her how long it had been since she'd last tasted battle, on the waning days of the Second Shinobi War.

It had not ended cleanly. No wars ended cleanly. In their retreat, Kiri razed the great forests of Konoha to the ground. They lost many kin.

The official story was that Obito's parents died during war. The father lost to battle, the mother to childbirth. There had been talk of Lady Grandmother formally adopting the child. But that was one thing even she, the mother of the Uchiha, could not turn back. House laws dictated that the mother must be Uchiha. She may have possessed the sharingan but Osen, Obito's mother, was not Uchiha-born and her tainted legacy carried to her son.

When he died, the clan had mourned him and searched for his body. Of course they did—they were not fools. But they could not find the body and the Inuzuka could not find the body.

It did not mean he was dead.

Lady Grandmother was an old woman. The wife of Uchiha Madara himself. It was she who spilt blood across stone to purge their clan of weakness. She was utterly merciless even to her granddaughter who had been nineteen years young. Mikoto bowed in respect to the formidable woman as Fugaku took his place at her left hand.

The old woman heard her story while her adopted son, Rikudo, shakily penned the words.

"I suppose blood won in the end." Lady Grandmother laughed, "Wouldn't ol' Mito be spinning in her grave right now if she could see?"

Mikoto said nothing. She did not have to. The Senju were a touchy subject for the old woman. She had lost everything in the founding, her family, her husband, her only daughter. She was soured through and through like a fermented turnip. Resented the village for what it was and what it could have been—a promise.

"The mangekyo." Uchiha Juuzo, fifth seat, said. "That side of the line had not produced talent since..."

"No," Komaki, sitting across from him, interrupted. "But it is not an impossibility. After all, the gods are fair." She concluded, laughing at a private joke.

"What was the boy thinking? Giving away his sharingan?" Voiced the sixth seat, somewhere behind her.

"He wasn't thinking at all." Replied the third.

"You observed it firsthand?" Lady Grandmother interrupted, ending the chatter.

"Yes honored grandmother."

Mikoto grasped a handful of smoke, flitting her fingers through the whorls. Like ember chasing the last lick of wood through the ashes, it drew a shape. She was loyal. The Uchiha were loyal; every Uchiha was loyal to the clan. But even Lady Grandmother could not predict what someone might do in the name of loyalty.

Light danced in her family's eyes. They bled color from the far edges of their black iris. With a strike of katon, she drew a pinwheel and Rikudo copied its shape in ink.

The sharingan was a tool. It granted the user perfect memory. The fallacy existed in the belief that the object in view was perfect. The end of Lady Grandmother's lips curled around her pipe.

"You are sure."

"Yes."

"Blades? Not fans?"

Contrary to popular belief, Madara was not the first to awaken the mangekyo though he was the most famous. The shape of an individual's sharingan was an indicator of its power. Madara's had been closed, fans, circling a period in the middle as a proof of divine favor—the black sun of when siblings Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi were joined. Izuna's had been open, three flat blades pointing in the three cardinal directions. Shisui's mangekyo had branched into a throwing star. Obito's had folded inward, closed, into a pattern of color known as 'fans'**[2]**.

Very few children had been born since the end of the Second Shinobi war. Uchiha married young and after Madara's revolt, many well-bred girls had been given away to appease the Senju whose matriarch's ire had obliterated him off the ancestral tablets. Shisui, her son, Komaki's daughter and perhaps even Uruchi's grandson bore watching. All four had the accursed Senju blood flowing through their veins, stamped with _her_ mark. They would be great but their loyalties would be called into question if their attention ever strayed towards the outsiders. They thought they'd thrown off Mito's spiteful curse when the Uzumaki died. Obito had been the firstborn, male, when she had sworn Madara would leave no heirs.

Uzumaki Mito had been right but she forgot. Madara's life was closely entwined with her own as though he had married Mito himself.

The smoke dissipated.

Mikoto was a direct-line descendant of Tejima and his wife Horin. Her husband, Fugaku, a second seat, was one of the few left in the clan who could name every ancestor to founding. But they could leave nothing for their son who would grow in a caged world fighting Senju wars for a Senju cause.

She decided. It was a mad gamble. Lives could be won and lost. Kushina's chosen could never be her own. But the clan agreed, he was fair. And no one liked Orochimaru. If she succeeded, she had the future Hokage's favor.

"Blades." She agreed mildly.

The matriarch puffed on her pipe of opium.

"Let Hatake keep the fire he's found. It'll burn out soon enough. But the other one, and his body. Find it. Bring it to me."

"At once, my lady."

Rin, Kakashi, and their teacher arrived at the Uchiha compound in style. The two guards at the front gate, dark-haired and dark-eyed, the subtle press of their armor visible under their flared shirts, laughing and shoving at each other for the spot of shade under the shadow, stilled when they approached. They had been expecting a ragtag cell of tired, bedraggled soldiers, not a clan noble flanked by two shinobi. Her face stretched into a grin under her forehead protector. In spite of his early protests, Kakashi wore his clan colors proudly. He flashed his summons demanding they let him through.

"She does not belong here." One of the Uchiha thumbed rudely, thrusting the scroll back in Kakashi's hands.

Rin did not react. She had expected this. The Uchiha couldn't touch the Yellow Flash or the son of the White Fang. But they could get to her. Like Kushina had warned, in their eyes, Nohara Rin was a nobody.

"I am allowed to bring protection." Kakashi replied.

The Uchiha made a highly unflattering noise at the back of his throat, unable to decide if he was insulted or amused.

"A chunin honor guard?"

"I bet she guards something alright."

So the Uchiha weren't immune to chauvinism. But they had given her the perfect opportunity to draw her scalpels, newly sharpened and gleaming in the sunlight.

"Please don't antagonize him." She said simply. Sweat soaked her back. It had been a narrow miss. The Uchiha hissed as he pulled the scalpel where it had dug deep into the doorway, close to his neck.

Minato sighed when the Uchiha backed away.

"Shall we?" Kakashi prompted.

With pinched mouths, the two Uchiha threw open the gates.

"Hatake-san, Namikaze-san, Nohara-san." A man greeted as soon as they stepped through. He tilted his head backwards, tracking the sun. Feathers bristled in his hair as he said, "you are late."

"We came as soon as we could."

The man's expression was cold. She could tell he was a person who expected orders to be carried out to the letter upon receipt. He had not expected them to be late; he probably had been waiting since the break of dawn when the hawk was sent with flowery calligraphy. "I hope you experienced no difficulties." The man said at last.

"None." Kakashi replied, a little wary because the man did not argue the point further. It had been a while for them both since they last spoke to strangers. They couldn't simply kidnap the man and torture him for information. That was barbaric. Inside Konoha, inside the walls, safe, war was a static thing counted by numbers of dead and lost limbs. To yield was to be killed and it took a moment for her to stop playing with the blades in her sleeves.

"My name is Uchiha Usuda." The man introduced himself. "I have come on Mikoto-sama's behalf. She apologizes for her absence and I have been instructed to facilitate your meeting with Lady Grandmother."

"Pardon me but, isn't Uchiha Fugaku the head of the Uchiha clan?" Minato asked hesitantly.

Usuda's answer was blunt.

"Uchiha Fugaku is the head of the outer house."

Rin bit her lips in confusion. She did not understand the social dynamics of the Uchiha clan but from what Usuda was saying, the Uchiha clan had their own counsel made up of the head of each family. A more accurate term for Uchiha Fugaku was an ambassador who represented clan interests to outsiders.

"So I will be speaking to Lady Grandmother." Kakashi concluded, bored.

"Yes." Usuda agreed. "She does not normally see outsiders but as you already know, these are extraordinary circumstances. The sharingan has never before been passed down to an _outsider's _possession." Once again, his gaze tracked the sun and she looked up as he looked up. She thought she saw shadows. "We must hurry. She dislikes being kept waiting."

Rin was fascinated by the glimpse into the Uchiha compound. Having a member of the four founding houses meant that most shinobi households and clans were reluctant to employ them for even the most menial, degrading, D-rank missions. Clan secrets trumped humiliation and Rin guessed she missed out on more than her share of politics when she was genin.

But her jaws dropped when she saw the carved wooden pieces mounted on tops of roofs. Idols dressed in gaudy shades of red, white and yellow. The three on top of the communal hall were even plated with real gold.

Konoha did not have an official religion. Rin's family prayed every year for good rains and pregnant rivers but nothing elaborate. Succession of refugees had made for different wares and colorful New Years. And apparently, Uchiha were pagans.

"Is this allowed?" She asked timidly, tugging on her teacher's sleeve.

"They're just decorations." Minato-sensei assured her. "No harm meant."

She nodded. If her teacher thought it was alright, it must be alright. But she could not be sure that the hollowed eyes held now powers as she ducked under the awning, unable to look at the rows and rows of Uchiha who had gathered to spectate.

"This is where I leave you." Usuda said in a low voice. "Hatake-sama, an advice, if I may."

From where she was standing, she only saw the languid slope of her teammate's neck. She couldn't see his face.

_"Do not reveal the mangekyo."_

Had she imagined it? Minato said nothing. Kakashi stepped forward as the doors swung open.

Usuda knelt at their feet.

"Lord Hatake has arrived."

Rin hurriedly kicked her shoes off. She thought, like the outside, the Uchiha were drowning themselves in opulence and color. But the Uchiha was a warrior clan. It took her a moment to adjust to the candlelit dark. The inside of the communal hall was minimalist. Cold. The austere wooden pillars surprised her as much as they would have had they been made of solid gold.

Under the solemn faces of their carved idols, the Uchiha were waiting for them. They sat in two rows, one down the left and the other to the right. She recognized Mikoto who was fourth seat down from the right. At the center, furthest from the door, sat an old woman with a fan folded across her lap. A man leaned to bring her pipe to her lips and she sucked, poisoning the air like a fat toad.

"Jounin Hatake—" started a man five seats down from the old woman.

"Hatake Kakashi." Her teammate corrected.

Rin swallowed a nervous giggle.

"We apologize for the lateness of our arrival. Your summons were... unexpected." Minato continued smoothly.

Lady Grandmother frowned at Kakashi.

"Do you know why I have summoned you?"

"I can hazard a guess." Kakashi said flippantly, hooking a thumb under his forehead protector. His sharingan eye glared like Mars in summer and the gathered Uchiha drew together, their eyes flickering red one by one by one. The only one who did not was a little boy who sat closest to them at the end of the line, his back a straight spear, cold hands wringing white in his sleeves.

She realized he could only be Shisui. The prodigy. Obito's cousin. The second inheritor of her teammate's will. He was _young_.

"You should have come to us immediately." Reprimanded a man six seats down to the left. "Why have you kept this a secret?"

Kakashi shrugged. She felt his chakra shake and spill like a miniature storm cloud, shocking his hair to silver brightness. Minato winced. The Uchiha stared like wolves.

"The secret is not mine to tell."

"The sharingan is not yours to keep."

Lady Grandmother was ancient. The smoke from her pipe could not hide what she was. She was a goddess of her domain. The marble centerpiece to the pagan idols the Uchiha worshiped.

"Do you know why the Uchiha are forbidden from setting foot outside these walls?**[3]** It is because we are _feared_. How many do you think wish to take our power for their own? Yet you flaunt it freely. You bring us destruction. You bring us death."

Kakashi slammed his forehead protector down. "Nobody knows." He insisted fiercely. She knew for a fact he had killed everyone else who had dared to catch glimpse of Obito's gift. "Nobody has to know."

"For now." A woman remarked smugly.

"_I can bring him back_."

She stopped breathing. Felt the silence spread like butter across a hot pan. This had not been agreed upon and she couldn't hiss and pinch Kakashi in the side like she usually did whenever he or Obito, always Obito because she'd loved Kakashi and Obito loved her, was attuned to her, body tilted as though he was facing the sun, put a foot in his mouth.

The Uchiha took their measure with their shockingly red eyes. The candles flickered through no fault of their own. Drops of hot wax melted down the thick stalks and fused with the wood.

"Tell me child." The old woman asked. "How will you do that?"

"I have his eyes." Kakashi replied. "We know he... he was alive. He survived. He's likely in enemy hands. I will crush them."

"You were not as nearly as passionate about your friendships before." Uchiha Mikoto artlessly observed.

"If we allow it, will you return the eye?" A man questioned from her opposite. She guessed that he was Uchiha Fugaku.

"The eye belongs to Obito." Kakashi insisted.

"Obito was Uchiha; his eyes belong to his family." The man on the sixth seat argued.

"Obito was an orphan was he not?" Her teammate was as quick with words as he was with swords. Rin stifled a sigh. Her insides twisted in knots. She didn't know whether to be afraid or exasperated. At this rate, she would need an open heart surgery to get everything sorted out.

Minato gave her a wink and she discreetly rolled her eyes away from the ember-glow of the Uchiha. "He left no will save this. He left it to me. Your family has no right."

"Then why ask?" Asked the woman five seats down.

"Formality. I take this to court. You lose. You knew he was alive."

Rin flinched. Kakashi was not a people person. She knew that. Everyone knew that. But she did not expect him to be so blunt about it. She snuck another furtive look at her teacher but he said nothing. Uchiha Mikoto said nothing. The woman had warned Kakashi not to reveal the mangekyo but why? She racked her brains for even a hint of treachery. Nobility be damned, she was not about to lose another friend.

"Obito pledged his life to protect the village. He was _my_ chunin."

"Such antiquated laws should be abolished." Muttered the man on the sixth seat.

"Then bring it up in the next council meeting." Kakashi snapped. "You were happy enough when Konoha took him off your hands."

"Kakashi..." Minato began.

"_Insolence_." Lady Grandmother sighed. "Do you even know the disaster you possess? Know that Obito's bloodline was a forfeit. It was only by the grace of god the mangekyo did not take possession of him while he was alive."

"But he was alive. You abandoned him."

"As did you."

The fan opened and vanished the smoke. Kakashi's voice fell into a hush.

"I failed him." He acknowledged. Propriety or not, Rin moved to sit beside him. She bumped his shoulder and felt him push back in gratitude. "I will not fail him again."

"_This is all academic_."

"_This sets the wrong precedent_."

"We deny your motion."

Kakashi jerked his head up when a man spoke. He sat next to Lady Grandmother, holding a pipe in one hand and a bag of opium in another. "But we are not cruel. You have suffered enough. The eye is yours. But Uchiha Obito belongs to us."

She held her tongue.

And bit down until it bled into her mouth.

Usuda was waiting outside.

Rin had not realized so much time had passed. She blinked several times, chasing the dark spots from her eyes. Beside her, Minato attempted to share tender platitudes and it was all she could do from holding her ears shut and scream in frustration.

"Shisui-sama." Usuda bowed when the doors opened behind her, followed by a black silhouette of a boy who'd sat near them inside. For a wild moment, she saw his gritted teeth and thought of Obito fumbling with excuses for being late.

"Uchiha Shisui."

The name was like a slap to her face. She took a step back, shaken, at the face soft with youth and a head full of black curls.

"Aye," the boy grunted. "You took my cousin's eye."

"You want it back?" Kakashi asked casually, willing to fight for it—ready to fight for it. Minato rested his hand on her teammate's shoulder, a thumb threatening to scrape the nerve point next to his pulse. Kakashi crossed his arms and scowled.

"Kakashi." Minato chided. "Be nice."

"It's fine." Shisui shrugged, giving their blond teacher an odd look. "I don't want the eye. He gave it to you."

"Is there something we can help you with?" Rin asked when it became clear nobody else would.

"We're going to burn Obito's stuff today." Usuda gasped and was duly ignored. "I thought you might want some of his things."

"Oh." Because the Uchiha didn't want Obito to come back all twisted and evil and the confession impressed upon her just how much the Uchiha had known. "Okay." She agreed, careful not to look at Kakashi or their teacher. "Thank you."

Obito's house sat empty, south-facing, near the edge of the property where a stone wall divided the Uchiha from the rest of the village. Rin spied the scuff marks on the doorstep, the uneven polish of a floor that had been painted over one too many times. In the yard, a training dummy grinned cheerily despite its broken neck. And she thought, Obito was here. Obito had been here.

The rooms were small, the staircase narrow as though the house remembered its occupant numbered one. Usuda hesitated in the doorway, looking for words to say, trying to stop them before he was quelled by the weight of a ten-year-old's glare. The man grudgingly explained that the house had once belonged to Obito's late father. He had shared it with his brother before they were married off. The house had somehow fallen into Obito's possession and Shisui's. Shisui was Obito's closest blood relative.

Rin noticed how carefully Usuda parsed words and knew that the omitted names were not mistakes. Like a broody hen, he clucked that the clan had been too soft on Obito. Obito should have never been sent to the Academy.

Her stomach flopped. She couldn't imagine her team without Obito. Even now, he was what held the team together in their shared grief. Rin hurried up the stairs after Kakashi.

Tracks of dust motes danced wreathed in golden flames. She pushed into the light, fearful and eager that she might see his face. But she didn't. It was warm inside. As though he had never left. In the three months they had been apart, his memories had grown to fill an entire room and she teared up, blaming the dust.

Things came to head when she saw the dirty bandages unrolled at the foot of the bed. Anyone else would have cut it off with a pair of scissors. Obito had taken the time to unspool the scratchy threads and his devotion hurt. He was dead and his actions hurt.

Kakashi stood unmoved as she sniffled and she thought angrily—he told you to take care of me. _Me_ Kakashi, dammit.

She hastily dabbed her eyes on her sleeve, feeling the cotton catch her eyelashes.

"Do your parents know you've called us here?" Kakashi asked dully.

Shisui answered, "My parents are dead. Help yourself."

"Are you sure?" She asked uncertainly.

The boy pinned her with a flat look. "No. I keep thinking that he's going to come back and wonder where his things are. Then he'll be mad at me because I gave everything away."

"Oh um," She wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Sorry." She finished lamely.

Hastily changing the subject, she turned to Kakashi with an affected cheer. "So, do you want anything?"

"No."

"Oh."

Kakashi walked towards the window. Traced the frames and pushed the window open. The evening air smelled wrong.

"They're not locked. I thought..." He stopped when he saw Minato and Usuda.

"This was his room." Usuda announced unnecessarily. The man seemed unhappy but he did not dare raise his voice against Shisui. She was starting to learn blood meant everything in a clan. Turning her gaze, she saw Shisui stare back at her with his pitch black eyes. Her question tripped on her tongue and became stuck between her teeth.

Obito's walls were filled with pictures, not posters and flyers and other war paraphernalia of a child soldier, but crisp, framed photographs like he had lead a second life through the lens. Some of it was of their year mates, out of focus, out of context, silly, hidden behind the shadow of his thumb. Others were of them, a little shorter, younger. Maybe even happier.

Minato flipped through the volumes on the shelf, even the one labeled 'do not open' and said, "I think Kushina might appreciate these. Did you guys find what you were looking for?"

Yes. It sat heavy in her pockets. But she took the framed photo off Obito's desk anyway.

Kakashi was staring.

Kushina threw open her door and dragged her inside.

"Thank god you're here—you have to stop them."

"Stop what?" She asked, bewildered as her feet slid across the wood.

She heard, "They won't be expecting it." From Kakashi. "They'll be too busy defending the borders now that Kumo's reclaimed Kusa. Sensei please, let me do this."

"No."

There were new additions adorning the hallway. Pictures Obito took. Kushina had lovingly stuck them inside frames that would hide the blurry edge of a thumb and she smiled helplessly as a curtain of red hair fell into her eyes and she heard her teammates argue away from her, without her.

"But why?" Kakashi demanded.

"Because the war will end."

It meant nothing to them, to her, because war was familiar. There was no trust when the next stranger could be an enemy ninja in disguise. They were raised to fight; they couldn't remember a world without conflict.

"Obito is there." Kakashi barked. "He's been there for months and we didn't even, sensei, please."

"He's dead Kakashi. His sacrifice will mean nothing if you do this."

The finality of their teacher's decision struck Rin with an awful pity. She pushed herself away from Kushina and watched as Kakashi and Minato wrapped up their conversation. She smiled weakly when they noticed her presence but her heart wasn't in it. Kakashi turned to her with the same look he had when they returned down one man, an eye burning in his socket, and their friend hastily buried under mounds of foreign earth. It was a look that said _help me_.

She shrank back. What was she even supposed to say? Kakashi was the team leader. Kakashi was the killer. She picked up the broken pieces after. If he didn't know what to do, how did she?

"We know the area sensei." She tried. "We'll be careful."

Minato shook his head. "Kannabi Bridge is at the heart of the enemy territory."

"We are ninja." It was their job.

"I know. But not this. I can't allow you to do this."

"Because you're a kage-elect." Kakashi said in defeat.

Minato did not deny it.

Rin was glad for her teacher. She really was. But at the same time, she was hurt. Why hadn't he said anything? Why didn't they tell her anything?

"Kakashi, it's more complic—"

Her teammate shook his head.

"Whatever. I don't want to hear it. We're done here."

After Kakashi left, they had dinner. It was a mostly silent affair. Only Minato talked while Rin stewed in a crisis of faith and her place in the world. She was sorry she'd ever gotten out of bed that morning. Yesterday morning. Kushina had been right and maybe her great-grandmother was right too.

Rin cheered herself with the thought it was certainly too late for anyone to be up. Her parents were merchants. They got up with the rooster's crow and they liked it.

Kakashi suddenly landed in front of her.

Once she'd exhausted her store of expletives, learned at her great-grandmother's knee while minding the market stands, she browbeat her teammate into submission.

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"I can't talk long." Kakashi stammered. "I came to say goodbye."

"You _what_?"

"I'm going after him."

The day was only getting worse.

"Ka-ka-shi." She pronounced, dragging him close. "Are you out of your _mind_?!"

"Keep it down." He hissed. "This is the only chance I have."

"The only chance—" she stopped. "You're serious. Of course you are. Did you even hear what Minato-sensei said?"

"Did you?" Kakashi shot back. "It's not like we haven't done this before."

"Except we don't have permission." Nothing made sense anymore. _Kakashi_ was going against orders. He wasn't supposed to change. It would mean that she had to change and she wasn't sure if she was.

Ready.

"He's waited long enough."

"Think Kakashi. You'll have no reinforcements. No help." She looked over his uniform, a change from the form-fitting clothes and leather. Hilariously empty-handed like he was going to cook, Kakashi had on occasion burnt water, or live on soldier pills.

"I don't care."

"It's like talking to a brick wall." She despaired. "Am I the only one who thinks we've lost the entire plot?" Kakashi blinked back at her, unimpressed. "Alright, you're really going to do this."

"Yes."

"And I have to stop you because this is stupid."

"You don't agree." And damn him if he wasn't giving her the eyes again. He hadn't cared before _he_ died and made him promise on _his_ grave that he would take care of her. She wished she was smart. Just so she could get a glimpse of the mind of a genius Kakashi supposedly had.

"That's not what I said—stop putting words in my mouth."

"I'm going to bring him home." He swore.

"Minato said, the war is ending."

Kakashi laughed, brittle-edged. And it was providence as he said the words, "The war will never end. The Iwa hate us. They will never let him go."

"You make it sound like he's alive." She said weakly. "Kakashi, please, wait one more day. He will understand."

"I can't." Kakashi's voice cracked into a thousand pieces. Her teammate wasn't even looking at her anymore. He never saw her.

He leaned forward, close enough to kiss.

His eyes were open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[1]** Uchiha are matrilineal and count their kin through the mother's side of the family. Sharingan users born to non-Uchiha mothers may be adopted into a family as servants or even branch members if they prove to be powerful enough.
> 
> **[2]** This is a little difficult to explain without the use of visual aids. If there is no red in the blades/commas of the mangekyo, it is called 'blades'. If there is red in the blades/commas of the mangekyo, it is called a 'fan'. The patterns are not inherited and are unique to each individual.
> 
> For simplicity's sake, example of blades include: Uchiha Shin, Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Izuna
> 
> Examples of fans include: Uchiha Obito, Uchiha Madara
> 
> Inverted color schemes like Uchiha Sasuke's mangekyo and several of the anime-only characters are also called fans.
> 
> The Uchiha believe that the pattern of a mangekyo can foresee the future.
> 
> **[3]** Probably mentioned before but I'll say it again because this is basically my excuse to shove all the headcanons I have about the Uchiha into one fic.
> 
> The Uchiha are uncommon in the anime and manga even before the massacre. Unlike the Hyuuga, the other major clan with a bloodline ability, they do not use cursed seals to control access to their cadet clan. Either the Uchiha:
> 
> _a._ Were reasonably confident none of them would ever end up in the front lines. The Uchiha seem to keep mostly to the village in their police work and do not take active roles during war. The only exception to this is Uchiha Kagami and Uchiha Obito.
> 
> _b._ Were confident that those who did end up in the front lines would never activate the sharingan vs. strong enough they'd get out of whatever mess they ended up.
> 
> _c._ Did use some kind of a seal to destroy the body upon death.
> 
> I should create a tumblr page to just wallpaper my feed with headcanons :D


	4. Chapter 4

In Kakashi's dreams, Minato's prophesy bore fruit. The war ended. Obito lived.

Rin knew she had to look away. Obito threw his head back, cackling at a private joke. With his back to her, she couldn't see the emptiness in his left eye or the ragged stump of his body. His face was scarred, whole, ruined, bleeding, where wet she stabbed her scalpel and dug deep.

The seven-year-war let its curtains down for intermission and she was wandering like a peanut vendor between the aisles. Her hands were scoured clean. Smoothed and lacquered in the style of the Land of Earth. Kakashi smelled like soap.

She told him. "Don't do this again."

Kakashi nodded in acceptance.

"You were always much better at this." He said with regret. "The Iwa chose wrong."

Their love wasn't a grand gesture, something born out of fairy tales. He couldn't make her blush. He didn't make her heart beat faster.

Obito called them boring and bought the first round.

She was happy; she accepted the frothy brew and drank until her throat burned.

"Rin." Obito hugged her around her shoulders and she pushed him away, repulsed.

She did not want him to touch her. She loved him for being alive and well instead of six feet under. She didn't think she could ever forgive the Iwa the insult of taking her teammate away. Yet, she did not want him to touch her. His hands were cold and white and full of worms. She thought if they touched, he might disappear.

Obito stared at her with a wounded expression.

"This is your fault."

He jerked backwards, features blinding like the edge of the sun. She could not keep her eyes on him. She could not tell if he had one eye or two, tall or short, living or dead.

"Kakashi!"

She squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn't sure what she would see but knew it to be terror.

"Stop!"

Kakashi explained.

"Obito was the best of us, he cannot be anything else. That's why you and I will do the rest."

Rin blamed herself. Kakashi was her teammate.

"Let me help Kakashi. You can't do this on your own."

"It's too late."

"Why?!" She burst out. "Because I love you?!"

He did not react to her confession. Instead, he smiled. With his eyes. A foreign expression across his handsome face.

"Because I'm already gone."

Rin sat up in tears when her great-grandmother jerked on her big toe. She kicked and her great-grandmother glared back from under her many wrinkles and the large mole on her left brow before scoffing, always disappointed in her, disappointed what Konoha could offer.

He great-grandmother was a survivor. She'd seen friends, cousins, siblings forcibly conscripted as soldiers. Fields abandoned because there was no one to till the earth. Trees stripped bare from wars that stretched from end to end.

She had proudly seen her granddaughter, her only surviving family, married to a merchant with better prospects that eking out a living under the thumb of whomever drew a map of the river which brought more corpses than fish. Her great-grandmother knew war and was disappointed this was the best her great-granddaughter could manage.

"There are men outside asking for you girl. What have you done? The sun's been up past the fourth cock-crow and you are still in bed!"

Rin was in bed. She struggled to think. She came back from her mission two days ago. Yesterday, she had been at the Uchiha Compound. The fourth cock-crow. It meant that it was past eight in the morning. Surely her sense of time was off. She was used to tracking hours through the movement of the sun and there was no sun overhead, just a spackled ceiling. No stars to guide her by. She rubbed her eyes and peeled back her sheets. Her grandmother scuttled around the side of her bed and pinched the flesh of her thighs.

She yelped and fed chakra to the soles of her feet, balancing on the wall of her room. Her great-grandmother's chickens were outside, scratching dirt. Two chunin were watching them in disinterest. Her vision narrowed. The two chunin had been sent to collect her.

For a moment, she bristled at the insult. She had seen Kakashi cut throats for less.

She slapped her cheeks and her grandmother said sardonically, "I'll tell them you're getting ready shall I?'

"Yes please." Rin said with a hint of desperation and sniffed under her arm pits.

She was rank. Her great-grandmother grimaced at the way she smelled her pits. Rin had been outside. She had just left Kakashi's house. They were living together. They loved each other. It wasn't romantic but they loved each other.

What happened last night?

It was too late for a shower but a little dirt never hurt. While the two chunin were sufficiently distracted, she pulled chakra to her feet and launched herself out the window.

"Rin!" Minato greeted her in wide-eyed surprise. "Where's Ranka and Hijiri? I sent them to escort you."

"Sensei, what's going on?"

There were others in the room. She blushed, knowing how she must look. But she had followed the only chakra she recognized. Minato's chakra had been a beacon to her, a bright light at the center of a universe that had gone horribly awry. Obito was dead. She could not find Kakashi. But she saw him.

Slowly, the haze of early morning ebbed away. She was horrified to realize that her teacher was not alone. In the room with him, she recognized familiar faces. Faces she could not afford to insult. Jiraiya, the toad sage, Orochimaru, the brightest mind of his generation.

She winced as her knees hit the floor hard.

"Lord Hokage, I apologize for my rude interruption."

"Rin, why did you run?" Her teacher asked again, lifting her chin when she did not respond.

"Look at her eyes." Orochimaru said nonchalantly.

"What about her eyes?"

Her eyes were fine. It was stupid Kakashi who had an eye missing. It was the Uchiha who were obsessed with bloodlines and eyes.

"Kai!"

The unsealing was explosive and punched the air from her lungs. She crumpled to the floor, heart fluttering like a caged bird inside her ribs. Minato quickly swept her into his arms and threw Jiraiya an admonishing glare.

"Kakashi..." She sniffled. She wiped her eyes, gave up when the back of her hands became too wet. She dug her nails into the flame-patterned sleeves. "He left." She spat, like she'd swallowed something foul.

"Yes Rin. Do you know what happened?"

"He wanted to find Obito." There was an imperceptible flinch. "He went without me."

And the more terrifying thought. "He left me."

"We know."

Clearly there were matters more important than a girl's broken heart because a woman stepped forward with a condescending sniff, Rin blushed when she recognized the clan markings striping her face. Red tattoos in shape of fangs down each cheek. Unlike her purple stripes, the fangs held meaning. The woman was an Inuzuka, as wild as her hair and the monster that panted beside her.

She flashed her teeth in a chagrined grimace.

"We lost his scent near the Uchiha compound." The Inuzuka reported sourly, patting her monstrous dog on the back. She did not elaborate. Her clan dealt in information. Any informant worth their salt would not risk their reputation for anything, not even for the Hokage. In times of war, the Inuzuka had kept its children from the front lines by serving as spies. She suspected this wasn't the first time clan politics kept information from the Third.

"Thank you Tsume."

The bespectacled man shrugged when called upon.

"Aburame?"

The man shrugged.

"My insects were unable to penetrate further."

To prevent spies, there were several measures active ninja employed to keep others from listening in on them. But she had just been to the Uchiha Compound. No more than half of them could be shinobi. Even less as active members. Clans practiced secrecy. This was paranoia.

"You think they helped him?" She gulped.

"We can't rule anything out."

"It's a simple enough matter to investigate." Orochimaru pointed out. "If I were..."

"No." The Hokage denied him. "Matters with the Uchiha clan are delicate. We cannot afford to accuse them of treason."

"My student?" Minato asked inquiringly.

"I am sorry. From this day forth, Hatake Kakashi is a traitor."

Losing Kakashi was a hard blow.

With Kakashi gone, Minato locked in ongoing sessions to see to the end of the war, her duties as an individual became limited. She also had paid leave overdue. But she couldn't bear sitting around the house or at the market, selling spices for gossip that would drive her insane.

Instead, she volunteered at the hospital. She observed the increments of time in the layer of bandages, lost limbs and knitted flesh. Doctors praised her for her level-headedness and decision.

"Rin, can you..."

"Oh of course."

"Oh thank god." The doctor said before jumping nervously. She didn't blame him. The doctor on call was infamous for her prickly attitude. On her good days, it was much safer to hug a cactus. From what Rin had seen, Dr. Homura had no friends. She seemed to spend her entire time at the hospital, cussing out the patients and orderlies and nurses in the order of precedence.

She gulped a little. But Dr. Homura was a good doctor. Even great. Even without chakra, her hand seemed to seamlessly seal wounded flesh back in place. She would stop at nothing to get her patient well at that was something Rin couldn't help but admire.

"Dr. Homura."

The woman scowled immediately.

"Good god, they gave me you? How did you end up in this clusterfuck?" She shook her head. "No helping it I suppose. How good are your hands kid?"

Dr. Homura was a woman in her late thirties. She wore a standard docs coat with shortened sleeves, a bright blue scrubs beneath paired with a tasteful skirt. She could have just come out of a surgery and not had a hair out of place. Her eyebrows lifted in jerky movements daring anyone to pursue that line of thought, a permanent frown marring her face and clear a room with the force of her glare. Despite her age, rank and gender, most doctors respected her decision. While she would never be called Tsunade's second coming, she came close. And for a civilian without talent in manipulating chakra, that was high praise indeed.

"I've been out on the field for weeks." Rin replied. "I can handle myself."

"Hmph, you haven't seen anything yet."

When she was a girl volunteering as an assistant, she'd never been allowed on the sixth floor. Logically, she knew where it was. She knew that the sixth floor was the fifth and the fifth floor was actually the fourth, right above the third, because superstition thought number four sounded too close to death.

When the door opened to admit her into the large reception area, she saw rows and rows of stretchers with people in them, moaning in pain or worse, catatonic with only a bedpan to keep them company. At her startled look, Dr. Homura shrugged "we ran out of beds."

"Ah, doctor!"

A teenager came up to them, her height, longer hair, and broad shoulders that made her eyes stray.

"Oh hello." He greeted, folding his hands into a reverse-dog. "My name is Kizaku Oban, pleased to meet you."

"Nohara Rin," She signed back. "The pleasure is mine."

"Now that we're all acquainted," The doctor drawled, "how is the floor?"

Oban was all business as he briskly listed the critical patients, problems that required attention and a list of patients to be discharged. Rin's head spun as she tried to keep track. She had an armful of clipboards by the time they had made the rounds around the beds and stretchers.

The patients on the sixth floor were hurt and fearful. They kept staring at her as though she'd draw a scalpel and steal their liver when all she wanted to do was check their bandages and redress their wounds.

They did not like to be touched. She understood their reluctance but it made her job nearly impossible.

"Fudou." Rin said in exasperation as the sandy-haired chunin wailed. He knocked her clipboard to the floor and at the clattering sound, groans rose from the neighboring bed.

"Enough." Dr. Homura said firmly, appearing out of nowhere. "Hold him down."

Oban pinned Fudou to his bed.

"Fudou-san, you're disturbing other patients." He admonished and with a brush of fingertips, diffused the chakra from the chunin's glowing veins.

Rin's hair rose and she unconsciously took a step back, left foot pivoting for easy movement as her hand searched for scalpels pinned in her sleeves.

Fudou settled down with a hiccup, curling up into a fetal position.

Homura huffed.

"Look kid, you're new so I'll let you off with a warning this time. We don't have time to coddle idiots."

"But."

She protested and swallowed the words as Homura's expression grew grim.

"We only have three doctors working this floor. Every second we waste, a patient loses a limb. We're not in the business of making them feel better. We're in the middle of a war. We're just here to make sure they're battle ready by the time their name comes up again in the roster."

"I understand." Rin said in defeat and Homura turned to attend the other patients, the clink of metal under the shifting cloth weighed with more promise than had her forehead been branded with a leaf. Oban gave her a sympathetic glance, his face infinitely patient and kind like a stone Buddha.

She kind of wanted to punch him a little.

"It's alright Nohara-san. Homura-san is really kind. It's hard for her sometimes knowing that they're going to end up back here. This is Fudou-san's fourth stay with us. He'll be fine."

"How can you say that?"

"Sometimes, this is all we have to keep going." He said gently. "May I?"

She nodded, not quite understanding what she was agreeing to. Oban gathered a ball of chakra in the palm of his hand and rubbed it, a bit like a salve, into her skin and her bones. Her flesh prickled like it had fallen asleep and was just beginning to wake. It was not unpleasant. But it was strange and unfamiliar.

"There." Oban said with a note of satisfaction. "I noticed um." He blushed, a rosy flush spilling down his neck.

"Yes?"

"Your arm, you should have gotten it checked out."

She opened her mouth to argue. She had gotten it checked out. It was fine.

Except no. In the confusion of Obito's mangekyo, she'd satisfied herself by eyeballing it. She'd dislocated her arm trying to tear past the earth. She'd popped it back in when Kakashi was busy rigging the shack with explosives. It was sore. But that was to be expected. There was nothing for it except rest and painkillers.

"You're a ninja." Rin blurted out.

Oban laughed lightly. "I'm not. There are plenty of healers who can manipulate chakra."

"But you." She cringed, waiting for Dr. Homura to jump out and yell at her again. Noblemen did not fight. Children did not fight. But they were fourteen, almost adults in the eyes of the law. Clearly, Oban knew how to fight. She could read his movements. She didn't know why he was at the hospital when she could have been an asset to a team.

"I have no gift for war Nohara-san." Oban said softly. "My squad leader failed me. He saved my life. My parents, they don't want me to fight either. They are shinobi. I pray every day for their safe return. I want to help people and if it comes down to it, I will defend the people I care about. But this war is wrong."

"Wrong?" The thought startled her. "We're trying to defend ourselves."

"From whom though?" Oban asked frankly. "At what cost?"

She mulled over this.

"I don't want to hurt people Nohara-san."

But I do. She thought to herself. Startled when she thought it. Surprised that she had thought it. There were people she wanted to hurt.

In the morning, Rin cringed at her expression as she brushed her teeth. She could see that her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed even through the steam of the shower. She couldn't go in like this. It was unprofessional. She'd be laughed out of ER.

Spitting toothpaste from her mouth, she knocked the toothbrush in her cup. The great thing about being able to control her chakra was that she's never worried about a pimple on an important day. Yawning, she clumsily packed her lunch in a bag and sank into her boots. Sandals were a great idea until a patient puked or pissed all over them. Her grandmother glared at her in disapproval as her pet chickens pecked the dirt.

She waved.

At lunch, she sat next Oban. Oban's family had come from near the south of the border in the Tea Country. He stood out. But despite being an able-bodied fourteen year old, he was not a ninja.

"Are you sure you're not from Lightning?" She had seen lightning ninja. They were tall and muscular compared to the people in the lowlands. But their skins were dark while Oban was white as milk. She'd never met anyone like Oban before. He seemed so cheerful when everyone else seemed worn down, faces taut with apprehension.

Oban laughed genially, scrawling something down in a perfect script that might as well been printed. Scars scored his knuckles, his wrist corded with muscle and fingers thick with calluses that could have only come from shurikenjutsu. His hair was overlong which sat oddly, gathering in a wavy mane on the back of his neck. He looked nothing like Obito, whom, like all Uchiha, had been small for his age, fine-boned. But Oban reminded her of him.

"He's gay." Dr. Homura said disparagingly when she noticed that Rin was looking.

"Wha... what?" Rin stuttered. "You, you can't just...!"

"Oban is from a little island called Ryoku. They marry them off young there. Who knows, he might have adopted an orphan or two." Her smile was like a knife. "Boys like Oban, they need _keepers_."

Rin did not understand. Oban had been nothing but a perfect gentleman to her. At her baffled expression, Dr. Homura coughed a short laugh and said, "Nurses gossip as much as fishwives. Doctors are worse."

Expression softening, Dr. Homura assured her.

"Don't worry kid, you're not the first one to get caught looking at him."

Mortified, Rin squeaked "You too?"

"That would be telling."

Dr. Homura winked and handed her a stack of patient files. "I want these sorted by the date of admission. You have an hour."

Despite Minato's optimistic forecast, the world continued to shit on them.

The war dragged on. Just because the lands were depleted did not mean that people did not kill. Negotiations were ongoing. It took time for news to trickle down, longer for feuds to stop, for revenge killings and honor killings to end. Thoughts of Kakashi fell to the wayside. She only observed the passage of time in the knitted bones and flesh.

At the memorial stone, she didn't talk to Obito. What was the point? She knew Obito wasn't there. Obito wasn't where they had left him; she was allowed that much through a toad who'd coughed smoke into her teacher's face when summoned, arm hanging with bite marks.

She began a count of limbs she'd hacked off since the start of the year. Thirteen was a magical number in which the village laws told her she was fully grown, no longer a child. At fourteen, she did not feel any different. She did not feel stronger or confident. In contrast, she'd grown complacent, allowing Kurenai to get a drop on her.

The kunoichi seemed unruffled to have a scalpel lined against her neck. In contrast, she seemed almost impressed that Rin was able to counter at all. The red in her eyes swirled like the pinwheels of a sharingan. Inwardly, Rin shuddered.

"Nohara-san, are you alright?!"

In the year they've worked together, she could not get Oban to drop the honorific. The door folded inwards with a mighty shove. Splinters sparked in the air and Kurenai jumped back, wide-eyed.

"Oh, um, hello." Oban immediately blushed. No one could have guessed that the mild, bookish nurse had folded the door with his bare hands. Kurenai narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Oban, Kizaku Oban. Nice to meet you."

"It's fine." Rin told Kurenai. "He's a friend."

"I'm sorry, it's just that I felt your chakra." Oban helplessly drew a shape in the air.

"Do you always keep such close eye on your comrades?" Kurenai asked.

"Only when they need it." Oban answered honestly.

Rin rolled her eyes.

"Come on Kurenai, you'll make Asuma jealous."

Kurenai blushed like a tomato. Before she could make denials, Rin lined her soles with chakra and launched herself into the air.

Rin had visitors. Sometimes. Some were social calls, little gossip and tidbits of information spread around like a bowl of sweets on Shichi-Go-San. Others were necessary like when Asuma broke both his ankles and was hobbling around on his knees against medical advice.

"That the dragon lady?"

"You cannot be serious."

Asuma's gaze was admiring as he watched Dr. Homura chew out a colleague over a patient. She threw her hands up in disgust and Kurenai, who had come bearing well wishes, was terribly upset.

"Don't worry." Rin assured her year mate. "Dr. Homura has a keeper."

And she was pretty certain it was true. Doctors, as a rule, did not wear jewelry. It simply got in the way. But Dr. Homura worse a beaded bracelet around her wrist, worn to shine, clumsily made as though it had been stuck together by a child. It obviously meant something to her. Maybe from a sweetheart. Rin decided it was a promise.

She stood behind her mentor as Anko did hers, spine straight and her feet evenly placed apart. They shared a brief look before staring ahead. They didn't know why they had been summoned to the Hokage's office but they could hazard a guess. Sarutobi Hiruzen was old. He had been thinking of retirement long before the Third War started.

Rin knew that Minato had been tapped as a candidate. From water-cooler gossip, she knew that so-and-so and such-and-such had also been in the running before they were killed in action. But she hadn't known Orochimaru had been considered. There was Lady Tsunade who was a direct descendant of the first Hokage, Senju Hashirama. Her teacher's teacher was the Toad Sage Jiraiya. Orochimaru had always seemed, slimy.

The Hokage cleared his throat.

"You have both done well. Your students have contributed greatly to the war effort. Without them, critical battles would have been lost."

"You do us much credit." Minato said sheepishly. "But I'm grateful for my team. I couldn't ask for a better one."

"Indeed." Orochimaru rolled his eyes. "One student killed, another turned traitor."

Rin bit her tongue before she could say something she might regret.

"Enough." The Hokage rebuked. "That is not why I have summoned you today."

Even the Anbu seemed to lean in to hear what the Hokage had to say.

The Hokage said finally, "I am thinking of stepping down."

Minato put up a token protest. Orochimaru did not bother which drew a faint smile from the Hokage's wizened lips.

But before he could continue, a jounin landed at the window surrounded by an entourage of Anbu and security who seemed to have been dragged through every tree between the Hokage's tower and the village wall.

"I have news!" The jounin gasped, wrestling free of Bear's hold and falling on one knee. "Inoki has sent word."

The air seemed to compress inside the Hokage's office. Ready to go off at a moment's notice.

The jounin wheezed, blue eyes wet with tears.

"The war is over."


	5. Chapter 5

It took him weeks to return. Weeks of dodging patrols and hunter-nin who had been pressed to capture, not kill. Their advantage lay in the fact that they knew his destination. But the Land of Grass was still a war zone with more booby traps than the village of rain.

Pakkun had bit his ankles when summoned but still guided him to safety when explosions behind him deafened his ears. When he arrived at Kannabi Bridge, it wasn't Obito who waited for him crushed under a boulder. It was someone else.

Kakashi stared as his eye watered, Orochimaru dripping silk poison in his left ear. He grimaced when the man peeled away, feeling dirty and in desperate need of a shower. With acid if necessary. But under his mask, his disgust barely registered as a twitch. They were professionals after all.

"Well boy?" Orochimaru purred, mirth echoing through the carved walls. "Go on."

A paternal push thrust him into the shadows. Kakashi stumbled. It was uncharacteristic of him. He was the son of the White Fang—he could say that now. Freely. Proudly. It was no small thing. Shinobi were tools. They were unfeeling.

But Kakashi felt.

Kakashi felt everything. In the darkness, his senses were enhanced. He felt the brush of fresh air from vents that studded the ceiling. He heard the bubbles swirling in the water. He smelled the familiar sting of antiseptic, chemicals, harsh and abrasive.

He felt everything from his raw fingers to the fractured pinky toe of his right foot. The forehead protector which he had worn proudly since he was all of four bore a scratch through its center. He was no longer the shinobi of the leaf.

It meant he was a traitor. He was everything Obito told him he was.

His heart thudded.

He looked up.

Rin was running.

The hospital was not the first place she ran to though it should have been. All those patients. Poor Fudou counting down the days until he was sent back out into the field.

She did not drop by her parents at the market to tell them the happy news. She did not visit her great-grandmother all alone in their house with only chickens for company.

The news she bore was a year late. It didn't matter. War was what she knew. Peace was foreign to her. She didn't know what it meant not to fight. She didn't remember a time when she didn't have to fight.

Her feet skidded to a stop in front of the memorial stone. Someone had gotten there before her. An arrangement of flowers sat in a vase and she had nearly knocked it over with her feet before her hand caught it, bumped it back into standing straight where it spun and spun on its glass base before rattling to a stop.

The water splashed her fingers and she wiped it off on her skirt. The water blotted the fabric darker as she knelt.

"Obito." She gasped. "_Obito_."

Obito did not answer her.

What was she supposed to say?

The war ended. It changed nothing—it didn't bring Obito back. It didn't bring any of her friends back. It didn't suddenly restore Tonbo's eyesight or regrow Shimon's foot.

It didn't bring Kakashi back.

"It's over."

The war ended and the world went along with it.

The villages were shell-shocked at finding themselves thrust into peacetime. Here and there, she saw lucky lamps hung on their posts. Entrepreneurs were already hawking small memorabilia to commemorate the occasion. Rin had been accosted by no less than five vendors pushing leaf-stamped shuriken in her hands.

The hospital came into view. A jounin was loitering in front of the sliding doors. She recognized him. He was the one who'd brought them news of Onoki's truce.

Iwa was to withdraw from neighboring countries. Onoki had given Konoha three days to do the same while the daimyo redrew maps and borders. Toads had been sent out immediately to recall shinobi from the front lines, still tangled up in bitter battles. And every day, there were new faces, strangers, friends, classmates she hadn't seen years, stagger into the safety of the village, treated with reverence as much as they were with closeted suspicion.

"Excuse me." The jounin said timidly. "Can you help me?"

She thought he would have left to rejoin his team by now. Or—a darker part of her whispered, he doesn't have one.

Rin quashed the thought. Everyone had a team. In their hearts or out in the wilds making an ass out of themselves.

"Is there someone you're looking for?"

"Yes um." The jounin blushed.

He had the strangest hair she had ever seen on another person. It could have been the angle of the light but she swore his hair was teal. No, it was teal.

"I'm looking for Oban." He said hurriedly.

As though summoned, the doors slid open from behind her and Oban landed, tripping twice over his feet, breathing hard like he'd come running from the other side of the hospital.

"Kogame!"

Rin ducked when Oban flung himself at his visitor.

"You're back!" Oban shouted. "Are you okay? What's going on?"

The jounin recovered but barely under the sudden weight, his knees shaky when Oban bowled him over.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." The jounin protested. "Hey." His hand rested briefly on top of Oban's head. "Everyone's fine. Yoku sends his love. Soubi says hi."

"You're so tall now." Oban breathed. "And your hair!"

Oban tugged his fingers through the teal hair. Rin felt discomfited. Seeing the normally mild-mannered Oban bouncing around like a puppy hit too close to home.

"Can't stay long." Kogame admitted. "I should be on my way."

"You need rest." Oban countered. "You were supposed to be in Kusa! Yoku will understand."

Kogame rolled his eyes.

"_Oh_ Yoku will understand."

"This is Kogame." Oban introduced once satisfied that his friend was only suffering from mild fatigue. Kogame bent in a strict ninety-degrees. She winced when she heard the jounin's back pop from the angle. "I used to be his teammate."

"You are still my teammate." Kogame corrected sternly. "We agreed that your skills were more useful elsewhere."

Oban did not react to the slight against his ability as a combatant. If she had been in his place, if Kogame had been Kakashi or Obito or Kurenai or even Minato, she knew she would have reacted with a fist, no questions asked. She wondered how Minato had kept them all in line. And if he had known, when he picked a team of Hatake, Uchiha and a civilian, she would be the only one to stay.

"How do you do?" Rin said, a smile straining her face.

They shook hands.

Oban's teammates were alive. Oban was a healer, a medic and a nurse. Not even a medical ninja.

It became evident. The common denominator was her. What happened to her teammates was her fault.

An owl hooted in the trees. Its friend answered. Perhaps it was an echo.

She wandered into the Forest of Death. No one was here. No one would think to look for her here. And why would they? The Third Shinobi War had come to a close. The cost had been too high for anyone to celebrate without going mad. Only a skeleton crew would patrol the walls tonight. Everyone else was too busy licking their wounds. Which was why Rin was slapping mosquitoes off her legs like an academy graduate on a D-rank mission.

She cleared her throat.

"Hello, it's been a long time."

"Nohara-san." Uchiha Shisui, all of eight, dressed in the finery of his family's wealth, regarded her with the boredom of a young princeling. So far removed from earthly matters that his eyes were already set on the terrible machine that moved their world. The war was over, now what?—his demeanor seemed to say. What was Konoha to do with its wealth of killers inside its walls?

And he was not alone. She was resentful for it. Shisui's honor guard loomed behind him. The light jingle of throwing stars in her weapons pouch was as much a warning as it was assurance.

"I received your message. Aunt Mikoto was most displeased."

_No shit_—She thought sourly. The Uchiha woman thought Rin was beneath her.

"I needed, I _need_ to know. Did you help him?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Hatake came to me for assistance." Shisui answered. "He wanted two things."

"And what were those two things?"

The honor guard bristled.

"Watch your tone girl."

"It's alright." Shisui said. "You're angry at him."

"I'm beyond angry at this point."

The boy nodded.

"The first was help getting out of the village."

His admission was treason. But Shisui was of a great house, one of four founding clans of Konoha. Rin was a nobody. Her parents were civilians. They had a stall in the marketplace. Their sole thoughts on the war had been fluctuating price of goods and exports. Not for the first time, she felt the limits of herself. Something that couldn't be quantified in chakra or strength.

Blood alone marked Shisui extraordinary. From what she knew of Uchiha burials—and she had researched much since Obito's passing—Uchiha burned their own in a rack of spice. Hyuuga buried their clansmen. Uzumaki offered theirs to the sea. If Shisui took offence, there wouldn't be a trace of her left to identify.

Shisui was eight. A killer. Maybe the best of his generation. Rin had compared Mikoto to a leopard when they first met. Compared to his older clanswoman, Shisui was young and earnest. His actions unpolished and even clumsy to her civilian eyes.

But when he was ready, Shisui would become a lion.

"And the second?" She demanded, painfully desperate.

Starlight fell through the canopies. It lit Shisui's teeth moon-bright.

An owl took flight and a life was snuffed out where she hadn't known was there before.

"He wanted a jutsu, one that could turn the bones of an Uchiha to _cinders_."

The body count did not stop.

Even as the ink dried across the peace treaty, the fight went on. War was beyond disagreements between villages, kages and the daimyo. Petty anger boiled over. Hunger turned into desperation. Grievances turned into rage. The strong carved out territory between borders, slivers of land that had been turned over to the dead. Overnight, villages appeared. All with their own symbols and self-styled kages. These villages did not care that the war had ended. They killed shinobi and enslaved refugees. Whatever was necessary to eke out a living in the shadow of the Five Great Shinobi Nations.

After six deployments, Fudou had his leg amputated and was retired from duty.

Ibiki was tortured.

Minato was elected as the fourth Hokage.

Rin walked through the ceremony in a daze. Her family got front-row seats. Her parents were very pleased and even closed shop for the occasion.

The crowd cheered when Minato appeared on stage. From the far left, Anko shot her a poisoned look. Her mentor had been passed over for the seat of Hokage. Rin didn't know the details but it was clear what it meant.

The Third had looked at his student and found him wanting. He had chosen a student's student instead.

_Politics_—Orochimaru's supporters hissed. What did the golden boy, the poster child for Konoha's war efforts know of being a shinobi? Minato was too strong, too bright and too recognizable for subterfuge. He had no clan and owed no allegiances. He had never been caught alone with an informant he could not risk killing. Never sacrificed a comrade for a scrap of information that would win them a battle.

Minato was what she should have strived to be.

Wrinkling his eyes, the Third offered up his hat to him.

Afterwards, she visited Minato in the newly vacated office of the Third. Kushina was talking over his head as always, equal parts frustrated and proud.

"Rin!" The redhead greeted happily, picking her up to giver a little twirl. Rin let out a peal of laughter. Kushina's joy was infectious. "Can you believe it? This idiot is the Hokage!"

"Hey..." Minato protested lamely.

He didn't look quite right in his ceremonial robes. His hat sat awkwardly on top of his head, squashing his hair flat. She would get used to it in time. Like with all things.

"This doesn't change anything." Minato said when he caught her staring. "I'm still your teacher."

But in name only. When was the last time they'd spoken? She saw the Hokage Rock outside the window. Workers were mapping out an area next to the Third.

"Sensei," she said. "Do you think I could be a sage?"

Rin might as well have struck both with a rasengan the way they were looking at her.

"What?" Minato asked, when he finally unstuck his jaw.

"What if I don't want to be a medical-nin?"

Kushina thumped Minato hard on his back.

"I'll leave you to it." She said. Minato stared balefully at her retreating back. He turned to look at her and sighed.

"I know the past few months have been hard." He said. "But it shouldn't be a reason for you to give up on your dreams."

Rin smiled but her heart wasn't in it. She could not remember if becoming a medical-nin had ever been a conscious choice or a role she had been cast into because she was a girl, because she was civilian-born and raised and no backing of a great clan or family behind her.

In Konoha, teams were made of threes. It was difficult not to compare each individual to the Sannin. Tsunade was the girl. Jiraiya was the joker and Orochimaru was the brooding asshole of the bunch. It didn't go deeper than that which was stupid. The Sannin were a legend. But they were real, breathing people—living icons and heroes of the Second Shinobi War. The Sannin were not memories of which people could speak of with any authority. But if she had to choose, Rin couldn't see herself as the healer, a caretaker, someone who could sit by while others got hurt. If she had to choose, she would have thought herself closer to Orochimaru.

Why not? One Sannin was just as powerful as the other. She was no heiress. She had grown up ordinary with parents who had never dreamed of becoming more than common merchants.

As though sensing her thoughts, Minato promised her a worthy mentor. She knew it wouldn't happen.

"I can't pretend that it doesn't matter. Not anymore. I was wrong to leave Obito behind. I was wrong not to help Kakashi. It's all my fault."

"Rin." Her teacher's hands landed squarely on her shoulders. "Look at me. This isn't your fault."

"But I have to take responsibility for the parts that are!" She burst out. "Obito made Kakashi promise that he would look out for me. Kakashi broke his promise. I have to bring him back!"

"Rin."

"Sensei, you promised, when the war was over that you'd let us go look for him."

Minato's expression was one of worn resignation.

"Kannabi Bridge is in Kusa. It is outside our jurisdiction. If anyone from Konoha was seen there, right after the peace agreement—I am sorry Rin."

Rin liked being around people. She had to remind herself that sometimes.

Sometimes she felt like a wave-battered shore and would take a short breather by doing a perimeter check around the hospital, pretending she was out on the front lines again, camping in some sage-forsaken swamp or shivering in the wet canopy.

It was after one of her jaunts she came back to find the entire hospital in a state of emergency. Chairs were kicked aside and counters cleared to make room.

Anbu swarmed the lobby like locusts. All were carrying bodies. Bodies that were too small to be anything than that of children.

Homura blanched at the rows of bodies.

"What in the name of Madara's three _tits_ is going on here?"

"Orochimaru." Rat heaved, chin wet with something that looked suspiciously like vomit.

"Experiments." Dog hissed. "When we tried to stop him..."

"He killed two on the way out. _Two_. Lord Third did _nothing_."

They accounted for sixty-one bodies. Fifty-nine were children. The two were Anbu that were slain during Orochimaru's escape. Their masks, splattered with congealed blood, remained on their faces even as their bodies were examined for the cause of death. Their family would be notified in due time.

But for now, the entire hospital was in a lock down. Those who had been waiting in the lobby were hurried outside onto the grass where first-year residents and nurses hurriedly noted their symptoms and sent them on their way. Emergencies were redirected to nearby clinics. The Anbu put up wards around the first floor, ram, hare, horse and a clap of hands. She saw Homura hesitate. This was no ordinary barrier. It wasn't made to prevent anyone from getting in—it was meant to prevent them from getting out.

There was one survivor. One survivor out of sixty-two. A little boy with matted brown hair.

Oban immediately jumped to his side and pressed a glowing palm against the bony ribs until the taut flesh smoothed over and the cheeks were no longer as sunken. They looked in his mouth. He had all his baby teeth. His lungs were healthy. She let out a sigh of relief when Boar reached out to take him.

"No."

Air compressed inside her chest as she took a step back. Everyone took a step back when Oban grabbed Boar's wrist and twisted it until the fair-haired Anbu fell to his knees with a grunt.

Oban's eyes had taken on a glassy sheen. He looked different. He didn't look very much like the kind boy who comforted the maimed and the dying on the sixth floor.

"Don't touch him." He said.

Boar let out a soft hiss and somewhere behind her, a nurse fainted and two others scrambled to hold her up.

Anbu surrounded him in a half-circle with their weapons out. Some were crackling with unspent chakra. But then seemed unsure where to aim. At Boar, who had attempted to take the little boy, or at Oban whom they could barely see straight without wincing.

"I have my orders."

Rin ground her teeth in time with a rotating wrist.

"What orders?" Oban asked.

"Enough Oban." Homura barked. "This is a hospital. I will put you on bedpan duty if you break that moron's hand."

It was as though a spell had broken. Rin could suddenly breathe again. Chakra—that was all it had been. Enormous amount of chakra. All from Oban who was the nicest person she knew.

"Rin, get him out of here." Homura snapped and Rin tripped over her own feet before swinging an arm around Oban's shoulders. Oban shuddered at the sudden contact but leaned into her embrace. Like all his strength had drained from him and was now playing red-light green-light with the Shinigami.

She led him into the break room and pushed a stale red bean bun in his hands.

"Eat it." She prompted when he wasn't moving fast enough.

Oban was shaking.

"I have a little brother." He said. "They're about the same age and I..."

"It's okay." Rin did not offer empty platitudes. She did not tell him that she would have done the same if someone else had tried to lay claim to her teammates. How angry she was at being left behind by _Kakashi_. She squeezed his hand. "I need to go help Dr. Homura. Will you be okay?"

"I, yes."

By the time she got back to the lobby, cloths had been drawn over the faces of children. Boar was being treated off to the side. Some nurses wept. Others buried themselves in work. In the midst, Homura was arguing with an elderly man.

Rin's eyes widened when she realized who it was. It was councilman Shimura Danzo.

She discreetly began examining the bodies nearest to them. Danzo's hard gaze glanced over her like water off a duck's back.

"You're not taking the kid. He's sick."

"We need him to figure out what Orochimaru was planning."

"He is a child."

"He is a witness."

"A witness to what?" Homura snorted. "He's not exactly in the shape to be talking."

"You are being stubborn young lady."

"And you are an obstinate, old fool if you think I'm letting you anywhere near my patient. If this is what I think it is, I will charge the entire council with conspiracy and being accessory to kinjutsu."

Danzo's expression soured. He cleared his throat and conceded that the battle was lost.

"Perhaps, we can talk somewhere more private?"

Rin didn't go home when her shift ended. She called her great-grandmother to let her know that she would sleep at the hospital—no grandmother, it's not because of a boy. There is no boy.

Minato dropped by with a container of soup and candy overflowing from her pockets. The Third apologized publicly to the village and vowed to bring his wayward student to justice.

She filled out the form for patient #41.

She couldn't do this anymore.

"... And when I find him, I'm going to drag him back by his hair!" His mentor declared, loud enough to be heard by the village. Heck, they could probably hear him in Kumo.

"Jiraiya, please." Minato pleaded. "This is not helping. Lord Third wanted this taken care of quietly."

Jiraiya crossed his arms with a harrumph.

"Nah, just gives the bastard more wiggle room."

Minato rubbed his temples. He thought he was ready—he really did. Everyone told him he was ready. Something, something, will of fire, something. He let out an aggravated sigh. As much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to long for the simpler days of stabby, stabby, kill-y. At least corpses weren't mouthy. If an opponent went down, they stayed down. They didn't hurl politics at his unprotected back or shut him out because he didn't understand 'clan matters'. Yes, stabby, stabby, kill-y seemed like an excellent way to get rid of his problems.

"Rin!" He greeted brightly, grateful for the reprieve.

His student froze like a genin who had triggered a wire trap. There were bags under her eyes big enough to haul potatoes and he felt bad for putting her on the spot. She looked so tired! But then they all were. Peacetime was a lot of work.

She seemed tired. But then they all were. Peacetime was a lot of work.

"Rin!" Jiraiya boomed. "You've grown more beautiful than I saw you last!"

Minato groaned. Sometimes he wondered what the Third had been thinking letting his students loose out into the world. His mentor didn't say the garbage that came out of his mouth out of real malice. It was... just the way it was. But it was awkward as fuck when it happened. Kushina was much better at this. The Third should have given her the hat instead.

"Uh, thank you." Rin said.

"How can I help you Rin?" Minato asked her gently.

"Actually, I was looking for Sir Jiraiya."

"Me? Of course you were. Would you like a copy of the latest Icha-Icha..."

Rin knelt and bowed her in front of them both.

"Please take me as your student."

"Are you sure you can't wait?"

Kushina moved slowly, conscious of her burden. She would be a wonderful mother. Rin was sorry she could not be there for it. She was sorrier that they had grown so far apart.

She could see Jiraiya ahead, waiting for her to wrap up and knew that if she didn't go now, she would never get another chance.

"This can't wait." Rin said when she really meant—I can't wait. With a teary smile, she added, "I'll be back before you know it."

"Remember to write okay?"

Kushina gave her a hug and her belly squeezed between them. Minato wrapped his arms around both until Jiraiya began talking very loudly about how a certain fugitive was probably somewhere in the Tani at that point.

"I'll be back." She sniffled.

This was how she began year fifteen.


	6. Chapter 6

"Is this really necessary?" Rin huffed as she thumbed through Icha Icha Paradise volume III _Special Edition_ as though it was a diseased thing. "Can't we go back to chakra manipulation?" She stared mournfully at the balloon ball which had kept its cheery, round shape in the palm of her hands. Frustrated, she squeezed it and watched it bounce back in defiance.

Jiraiya had directed her to swirl the water inside the balloon. Something about shaping the chakra instead of simply kneading it. It was a great deal more difficult than it looked. But she thought if she could keep the momentum, feeding the whirlpool just a little bit at a time, she could get the balloon to burst. She didn't have the biggest pool of chakra, but it wouldn't take much. It would just take time.

She pouted.

"Ah Rin," Jiraiya said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You should call me _uncle_. Why a girl like you and a man like me, what would people think?"

Rin narrowed her eyes at the faulty logic. Right. She had brought this upon herself.

The cowhand cleared his throat, awkward at being caught in the middle.

"We're here."

"And so we are." Jiraiya turned around with a wink. "Here you are my good man." He said, pressing copper ryo into the other man's hands. "May your crops grow fat and your wife have many beautiful daughters."

"I don't have a wife." The cowherd mumbled as his fist closed around the paltry coins. During the height of the Third Shinobi war, Rin would have given away her entire commission for an alternate mode of transportation. Kicking her feet against the side of the cart, she jumped off. The cowherd snuck a look at her. "Um, you too.

Rin rolled her eyes. She didn't know what was worse—being thought of Jiraiya's wife or pretending to be his niece.

After a week of travel, they were finally in the Land of Grass. To the east was the border to the Land of Fire. To the north was the Land of Falls. To the west was the Land of Earth. And finally, to the south was the wreckage of Kannabi Bridge.

She could almost taste the dust in her gums from when the rocks fell. As her teacher had once predicted, the war was over. Maybe she could go back now that it was peace time. To see if her teammates were there. Had been there. To say proper goodbyes to the two boys who left her behind.

"So." Rin ventured. "After we finish this mission..."

"Eh?" Jiraiya said, rummaging through his belt satchel. "One's mission is never finished. A shinobi's life is a series of missions."

He took out a leaf of paper and smoothed it out against a rock for Rin to see. She immediately wrinkled her nose at the wall of perfume that punched her in the face.

"This is a love letter." She said, pinching her nose shut.

In sprawling loops and a creative interpretation of what characters were supposed to look like, the letter graphically described how the sender longed to be ravished by her mentor. A kiss mark concluded the letter in lush slopes. Rin furiously willed the blush on her face to go away.

"You have much to learn my young student." Jiraiya said, smug. "This is no mere love letter. These are directions pointing us towards a certain, treacherous snake.

She squinted.

"How can you tell?"

Rin took code breaking in Academy. All students were supposed to take it though some, like Kakashi, were better at it than others. She remembered the afternoons after class putting heads together with Obito or Kurenai, trying to figure out how to break the carefully scripted code before Ibiki became frustrated enough to tell them the answers.

Jiraiya pointed at the end of the letter.

It was hard to make out his name under the glitter.

"That. Do you know how many love letters I get?"

"A lot?" She hazarded. Rin understood the commercial success of Jiraiya's works. She just preferred other authors.

"But how many do I get addressed to me personally? Such intimate letters!"

He looked down at the words with longing.

Rin didn't see why it was such a big deal. Jiraiya wrote porn.

He flipped the letter over.

There was a portrait on the back of the letter. An image of a woman in a scandalously low-cut furisode. Scales edged her collar. She was very pretty.

Rin gave her mentor a side eye as he dramatically declared, "The lady wished to have me where the winter cherries bloomed! Winter cherries bloom in the summer and are most plentiful in the Land of Grass—more specifically, Hozuki Castle."

She shivered in spite of herself. Rin knew Hozuki Castle by reputation only. It was where hidden villages used to send problem shinobi before the war. More specifically, problem shinobi they did not wish to kill themselves.

The cowhand had dropped them off on the outskirts of a settlement near the water, not a day as the crow flies from the ominous prison. Though the Land of Grass was a landlocked territory, water stretched towards the horizon like a river. Rin had seen pictures of oceans in books but could not imagine anything wider or deeper.

"Is he at Hozuki Castle?" She asked timidly.

"We don't know that yet."

Everyone stared as they walked into the settlement. The settlers were not used to visitors. It was only by sheer chance that Jiraiya's informant had spotted Orochimaru in the first place. And Rin supposed that they should count their blessings that the sannin was unmistakable.

"Never thought the bastard's vanity would come in handy." Jiraiya grumbled as though reading her mind.

"He must be long gone by now." Rin said out loud. "What are we doing here?"

"That's what we are here to find out. This is our mission Rin. Making sure we gather the information we need to save our comrade's lives."

Rin nodded, emboldened by the sense of purpose.

"How do we do that?"

Jiraiya winked.

"By asking of course!" He cheerfully slid in front of two women. "Excuse me my lovelies~"

Rin sighed. She asked to be a sannin's student. Jiraiya hadn't needed to take her. She was glad that he hadn't tried to ditch her at the first opportunity.

He tried but it didn't count. Not really.

She looked around. The settlement had maybe twenty people. Small enough that the news of their arrival would have spread quickly. If she wanted any useful information, she would have to move fast.

The first person Rin spoke to was their host. The older woman had been willing to rent out a spare bedroom for a fee and idly cautioned her to keep an eye on her _husband_. Gossip was thin. The settlers were small folk, simple folk. They were not used to visitors.

"No one will talk to me." She sighed over a bowl of yakisoba.

"Hmm? It takes practice. Not every adventure is about death-defying battles."

More book analogies. Jiraiya took out an unfinished manuscript as he nursed a cup of warmed sake.

"So what else can I do?"

Jiraiya looked her over critically.

"Perhaps." He suggested, thumbing the pages. "You could offer them companionship."

She finished her noodles.

"You want me to what?"

Rolling his eyes, Jiraiya leaned and whispered in her ear.

"_Seduce them._"

"What?!" She exclaimed, her face flushing hot.

Her mentor burst into laughter.

"Hahahahaha! How do you think I gather information?"

"I thought you peeped in public baths!" She snarled and immediately covered her mouth in case she gave their host any more wrong ideas.

"I'm wounded." Jiraiya said, clutching his chest. "Such accusation!" He waggled his finger. "But, you wished to become my student didn't you? Eh? Eh?"

Rin puffed up her cheeks.

"Don't remind me." She huffed.

Briefly, she thought about Kushina and her baby. The baby was due soon. Rin hadn't even known there was going to be one until the jounin had shown up one day with her stomach big as a watermelon. She always thought Kushina would get married first. Settle down. But they were shinobi. Nothing was easy for them.

Which was why she ended up creeping around men's bathhouse.

The houses in the settlement were modest, single-story structures that offered barest amenities. So the settlers used the public bathhouse which was really a large, stone hot tub divided by a screen. Privacy was an illusion. She could already hear the outrage from the women's side of the bathhouse.

Rin decided to do her laundry instead. Men were gross and her clothes smelled like a cow.

Barefoot, she waited for her things to dry. The women gossiped around her. Their words went in one ear and out the other, punctuated by thwacks of wet cloth.

"Did you hear? Suzuki's daughter ran off with the smith."

"_No_."

"She didn't!"

"He's old enough to be her _father_."

"Her poor fiancé."

"The fiancé wasn't much of a catch."

"Suzuki should have consulted her almanac—how inauspicious."

"Suzuki will have another worry if the bandits get them."

Rin perked up.

"Bandits?"

And at once, the women's expressions turned dull and uninspired.

Rin tried again. "You have bandits?"

"Yes." A laundress replied.

"Why not hire someone?"

The women shared awkward glances between them.

"Because we can't afford it?" A kind-faced woman offered.

"But," She bit her lip. "Where are the bandits? Maybe I can help."

An older woman shrugged. "Pay it no mind child. The bandits do not bother us as long as we stay within village limits."

But she did pay it mind. She bought a pack of dumplings from a man who gave her extra bits of meat for being new and pretty.

Rin grinned at the compliment. She knew what she looked like. She was bedraggled from a week's travel with Jiraiya. Her great-grandmother, if she could see her now, would have made her bite a bar of soap and beat her like spring laundry.

The people needed help.

"No." Jiraiya said decisively.

"Why not?" She protested. "They need help."

"This is not our battle Rin. It's _peacetime_."

"So we're going to let them suffer because the war is over? That's not right."

"Rin," Her mentor sighed. "Our mission is to find Orochimaru. Fighting here? Without a contract with the civvies? We might as well declare the Fourth Shinobi War."

Her expression pulled into a pained grimace. The Third Shinobi War had just ended. Would their actions be enough to ignite the Fourth? No one had the manpower for invasions. Maybe the samurai in the Land of Iron. Or the Dark Continent across the sea.

"But we can help them."

"Rin, you are a _shinobi_."

But it didn't mean that she couldn't help, she thought determinedly as Jiraiya handed her another book to memorize. It just meant that she couldn't be caught.

She slept to early light. To an hour when Jiraiya was still snoring away in his bedroll. Dodging the empty bottles of sake at her feet, she used the body flicker technique to land on top of the roof. Dawn was beginning to peek over the horizon, drenching the world in pastel watercolors.

It was easier than she thought it would be to find the bandits. She had been thinking like a shinobi, expecting cloak and daggers. But the bandits were a band of men that had gathered to take advantage of those weaker than them.

She heard their footfall and clamor long before they marched into view. Steel slapped the meat of their thighs. She noticed that two even had bows and arrows.

Bandits or no, Rin could not believe how loud the men were as they carried out a hind from the tall grass. The hind was newly killed, still dripping blood from its mouth. One of the men commented that they would eat well for a week.

She thought, maybe if she could tie them all up, she could make the bandits give back what they pillaged from the settlement.

Carefully, she snuck up behind them.

"What about them newcomers huh?"

"They're staying with Michiru aren't they?"

"I'm just saying, the girl would be a fair match for Jiro's boy."

"Bah, have you seen her man?"

"That can be taken care of heh heh."

Rin struck.

The rearguard was easy to take out. They fell by surprise onto their knees and she kicked their heads together, knocking them out.

Two down.

The difficulty were in numbers. Rin had fought bandits before. But she always had back up. Power was nothing if your reach was only three feet. She'd learned that lesson when Kakashi attempted to skewer five people with his skinny, thirteen-year-old arm. She wondered if he had grown at all.

Birds took flight, shaken from sleep. Their cries rang like chidori in her ears and she rolled to dodge a machete.

"You!" One of the men cried out in surprise. He faltered when he caught sight of her face. He was the man who had sold dumplings to her.

_All of them were men from the settlement_.

There was no time to think. She threw a shuriken which struck the man's wrist. His machete went spinning into the undergrowth as she landed between two others, hamstrung one with tiger-horse-rabbit-rat-dog and disarmed the other.

Five down.

From a few feet away, a man released an arrow. It cut a line in her shoulder. More arrows followed and she ducked under the dumpling man. The arrows struck and he fell with a short gurgle.

Six down.

Rin heard someone cry out in denial. In her haste, she had strayed into the path of a waiting foot. She cursed herself even as she fell and shaped her hand into a tiger.

"Close your eyes Rin!"

She closed her eyes.

A flash bomb went off.

When she pried one eye open, she was treated to the sight of her mentor's face.

"I told you not to come here." He rebuked even as he cut an arrow out of the air.

"I wanted to help!"

"No." Jiraiya shook his head. He looked sad. "You wanted to prove yourself."

One of the men bolted. He must have heeded Jiraiya's warning.

The sannin was in the wrong place to intercept. But Rin was not. She finished the rest of the seals and drew air into her lungs.

"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"

A giant ball of fire erupted from her mouth. It was nothing like what Obito had shown her during their last mission together. It lacked force. She hadn't managed to hurt him. Sheer animal instincts drove the man to the ground with a soiled seat.

"The Grand Fire Ball Technique." Jiraiya looked furious. "How?"

"I saw Obito do it a few times." She stammered.

"Your teammate." Her mentor looked skeptical.

She turned to the groaning bodies.

"They're from the settlement. Why would they...?" She didn't know what to say. Did the women know? Did they lie? The Land of Grass was still governed by Iwa. Was she really surprised?

"We are not wanted here."

"But why?"

Jiraiya tapped his forehead. Instinctively, Rin raised her hand to hers. Her forehead felt oddly bare without her forehead protector. But she had taken it off after crossing the border of the Land of Fire.

Suddenly, something occurred to her.

"You knew. They made it look like there were bandits prowling the area to protect themselves."

Jiraiya sighed.

"Yes."

All of them had known. The settlers. Men, pretending at being bandits like little boys.

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

Because she remembered the dumpling man's smile when he gave her extra bits of meat. The truth in the laundrywomen's voice when they told her that they could not afford protection.

"Because we cannot have dissent this close to the border." Jiraiya said sternly. "What would you have done during the war?"

She would have killed them all.

Jiraiya knelt and cast genjutsu on the survivors.

"It won't last forever. But it will last long enough." He explained. "Memories fade."

"But they need help! When is it their turn to be saved?" Rin asked. "When they have enough money?"

"Ah Rin, you are too kind."

She fought the urge to sniff. She was not kind. She had just wanted to help the villagers. But Jiraiya was right. Part of it was her own hubris. She wanted to prove that she was a capable shinobi.

Jiraiya suddenly took her by the arm and turned her around. He pulled on her sleeve and stretched it out where an arrow had gone through the fabric.

"Are you alright?" He asked, even as he wiggled his finger in the hole.

"Yes, I'm fine." Rin replied. She'd forgotten that was there. "They missed."

"Whoever made this knew what they were doing." Jiraiya said with reproach. "They wouldn't miss." He pulled the arrowhead free and accidentally cut himself on the sharp edge. "Tch."

Rin pulled bandages from her utility pouch. She noticed that it was the one she had taken from Obito's room. The one he had used and unraveled instead of tossing it away. She rolled it across her palms and cut an appropriate length, careful to store the rest back.

"Your chakra control needs work." Jiraiya observed which didn't seem right because she had been chosen to be a medical-nin because of her fine chakra control. As she tied off the bandaging, Jiraiya said meaningfully, "Nature transformation is difficult. Electricity comes from the heart. Water follows your hands. Feet touch earth. Lungs breathe air. Fire comes from the mouth."

"Oh." She said. She hadn't known that. She was tested for nature affinity back at the academy. Her conduction paper had turned to ash. It hadn't been that unusual. A lot of ninjas in Konoha had fire affinity.

But not all of them were strong enough to use nature transformation. Fire was tricky because by itself, it had no power. The trick was getting it to last long enough for objects to catch on fire. Or build up enough heat that it would damage an enemy. At most, people kneaded just enough chakra as a surprise tactic. In that way, suiton and doton were much more useful.

"We will need to move." Jiraiya sighed. "And we just paid for those rooms too."

"I'm sorry." She stammered. "I will get our things."

"No, in a place like this. It's best if I do it. Just make sure they're all tied up."

She waited.

Long past the time the sun had cleared the horizon, Jiraiya did not return. It was as though he had forgotten her. She didn't think that the villagers could have contained him. Maybe a pretty face had turned his gaze. But her legs were going numb from sitting. She was hungry and the men were beginning to stir.

Rin took out two soldier pills from her pack and swallowed them. The grass rustled. She was so close now. This was the place where her life had irrevocably changed. Changed Kakashi for the worst. Revealed her to be the worst.

Nausea and terror turned her stomach as she scratched hasty directions in the dirt. Because she had to know. Once upon a time, she had a team too. Just like Jiraiya. Like Jiraiya, she had been left behind. One teammate gone rogue. And the other—

But Jiraiya's team was alive in a way hers wasn't. In a way, she couldn't be sure hers was. What happened the night Kakashi put her to sleep with a head full of what-could-have-beens and what-should-have-beens? Was he safe? Was he alive?

She hadn't asked Kakashi. Kakashi was the best. That did not mean that he was infallible. That did not mean that he was always right.

Rin would get hell for this later. Jiraiya may even refuse her as a pupil. But she was already in hot waters with the sannin. She shouldn't have gone against his orders. She wanted to help. She tried to help. But ultimately, she had wanted to prove that she could stand on her own.

She was a shinobi of the leaf. She had been trained climbing trees that stretched mile high into the air. Her mad dash to Kannabi pushed air into her lungs. It almost felt like someone had tied wings to her feet.

By the time she arrived, the sky was beginning to turn dark. Clouds had melted away into the night. The sun hovered just over the horizon as though it had been waiting for her. Like Obito had been waiting for her.

Was he still there? His grave had grown grassy green. Short violets waved at her from the crags between rocks.

Deep down, she knew her teammate was far away. For if he had been where she buried him, Kakashi would have returned with the body. Obito would have a real grave. She would have never left Konoha.

"Rin."

She whirled around.

"I'm sorry, I had to—"

The morning after Kakashi's betrayal, Jiraiya had dispelled the genjutsu with his chakra. The same pressure bore down on her as she took a step back.

"I think it's time you revealed who you really are."

The toad sage peel the bandaging from his finger and let his chakra burn it to nothingness.

"I don't understand."

"No, not you Rin-chan."

He appeared behind her and slid his hand down her face. She squeezed her eyes shut expecting to struck and when she wasn't, she opened her eyes and her mouth dropped in horror.

In the thin veil of light, Obito stood before her, just as she had known him. He seemed surprised to see her and reached out to her, teary-eyed under his goggles like he'd been away for a while. A little trip there and back. As though the two years since his death had been a terrible dream.

His lips formed a syllable 'Rin' and she cupped a hand to her mouth. Rin hadn't realized how much she'd missed him. It hadn't hit her until she saw him. He was just a kid. Shorter than her, younger than her. Two years younger. Not a day older than when he died.

Tears streaked down her striped cheeks.

"_Obito_—"

She stepped forward and as she did, the sun slipped past the horizon.

He was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, the last bit is a _Kimi No Na_ reference :)


	7. Chapter 7

Jiraiya pulled her along swiftly as he might an unruly child. A civilian, he would have carried. A student, he may have trusted to follow. But not her. There was none of that now. None of that since Rin tried to grope past the twilight into the fading warmth of the sun.

Obito had been there. Just as she had left him—two years younger. Unmarred and whole, even in his left eye.

"Stop, no! We have to go back!"

"We will not."

Jiraiya stood tall, looking left and right but not at her. There was pressure in his grip that was born from fear but that was wrong because Obito was her teammate. Obito was her _friend_. He wasn't a simple ghost or a spirit or a bakemono or a ma. Whatever Jiraiya must have thought he was, Obito wasn't it.

Rin twisted free from her mentor's grip. When he reached for her again, she shouted,

"No! Not until you tell me what's going on!"

Rin had been taught to listen to her elders. Her betters. Disobedience could get her killed on the field. But this was Obito. He was her teammate just like Kakashi was her teammate and her claim on them overpowered any inadequacies she might have felt at that moment. Rin was a shinobi of the leaf. Her duty was to her teammates in war or peace.

Jiraiya looked at her then. Saw that she was maybe a finger-width away from pulling knives on him and instead, unraveled a scroll in his hand and bit his thumb, letting the blood dribble down the slick page. Blood mixed with ink and a toad appeared, as tall as a man and three times as wide. It furrowed its deep orange face, eyes bulbous and angry under the shadow of its brow.

"Gamatarou, there is a grave due north. You will know when you see it."

"Tch, was it disturbed?"

"No." Rin said in denial. "Why would anyone..."

"We must consider all possibilities." Jiraiya said sternly. "Your teammate was an Uchiha. There are those who would pay through their nose to get ahold of the clan secrets and your team left his body there."

"We had no choice."

The excuse sounded weak even inside her head.

Jiraiya shook his head.

"Minato should have burned him."

"Obito is not a ma." Rin snapped.

"_Ma_." Jiraiya repeated, rubbing his palm up and down his weathered face. "That's what the river folk call their walking dead. It's appropriate Rin. Do you know why the dead start walking?"

She knew. Her great-grandmother used to tell her stories when she was young. Back before she was conscripted into the lifetime of war. Ma were the souls of those whom had been denied their burial rites. Restless, they would rise at night and haunt the river.

"He wouldn't."

"You do not know what a spirit or may not do young lady." Gamatarou croaked. "Your teammate is dead. That means that the rules of the living do not apply to him. Grudges are born in blood."

The toad spat in the dirt and headed north. And when Rin looked back, when she had the courage to raise her chin high and look back, she saw tongues of flame where the grass started, leaping blue like a string of will-o'-wisp.

The sky ran black between the stars.

Behind her, Jiraiya sighed.

"We stop here then."

Jiraiya dug a small pit and started a fire of his own. He took a pinch of spice and sprinkled it between the logs. The fire burned bright orange, crackling on pieces of salt before settling down.

For the first time, Rin wished that she'd paid more attention to her great-grandmother's tales. In a way, her great-grandmother would have been perfect for this situation. Her great-grandmother wasn't a shinobi. The old bat detested Rin's work. But she knew about spirits. She had grown up in the land of rivers where the running water was either a boon or a curse. Her great-grandmother knew how to appease spirits and avoid what would anger them. She knew the words. She knew the steps. She was the last of her kind because her mother was too busy and Rin herself had been too arrogant to listen.

Her great-grandmother would have known what was happening. She would have called Rin stupid but she wouldn't have glued her lips shut like Jiraiya, staring at her as though she was something diseased.

The fire grew large enough to bathe Rin with a fierce sort of warmth. And when it did, Jiraiya wordlessly took a gourd from his belt and handed it to her. She uncapped the gourd and immediately cringed. It smelled foul. Anywhere else, she would have dumped it at her feet, Sannin or not. But she took the offered drink. She coughed and fought the urge to vomit as it curdled in her mouth.

"Swallow it." Jiraiya said sternly as he sat across from her, using the fire as a barrier between them.

"What is happening?" She asked.

What had she seen?

She knew that in medicine, stress could cause hallucinations. Her hand trembled as she held it up to the light. She could almost feel his presence at her finger tips. She could swear, when she had reached out for him, he was there. Obito had called out for her. He didn't die when the rocks fell down on him. Only after. After they left him. And even without her great-grandmother's bedtime stories, she knew that the angriest ghosts were those with grievances.

'Are you angry at me Obito?' She thought. 'Do you blame me for leaving you there?'

"You were possessed."

"Huh?" Her head snapped up. "But how? I've been with you since the village."

Jiraiya shook his head. As though fearing eavesdroppers, he took another pinch of spice and sprinkled it over the fire. Above the popping noise, he asked,

"Your teammate died during a mission. How?"

Rin held her tongue. For some reason, she did not wish to tell him. Jiraiya already knew what happened. When his star pupil came back missing a student, he would have gone through the records and known why Obito was gone. Why Kakashi covered his left eye and why the Uchiha, their coldness to Obito aside, were furious.

And that should have been enough. Did he not understand that they went on a mission and left their teammate to die under a pile of rock?

Only, maybe, Obito didn't die. Obito died later when Kakashi's eye turned. When Uchiha Shisui's eyes turned into the patterns his elder clanswoman Mikoto called the mangekyo.

Obito was left behind. It was her fault. She was the team medic. Had been. She should have been. She shouldn't—Rin had been a liability. She got caught by the enemy ninja and Obito paid the price for it.

As a medic, she could not regret. Only look forward. Save the ones that could be saved. But now, as a shinobi, as a kunoichi, as a pupil to one of the Sannin, She wondered what she could have done right.

Her teeth clenched shut.

"Rin," Jiraiya said impatiently. "This is important. Something unhinged the Hatake brat into turning traitor. It wasn't just a teammate dying."

What did Jiraiya know of her teammates outside Minato's stories? That one was a Hatake, the other an Uchiha. Both from great houses. One turned traitor, the other a martyr.

"Kakashi wanted to bring him back.

"Bring him back?" Jiraiya said in alarm.

Rin realized how that must have sounded.

"Not like that. No forbidden techniques. Just, bring his body back to Konoha where he could be buried."

"The Uchiha are burned, not buried." Jiraiya replied darkly.

She knew. But his teammates were alive. How much did he understand having a corpse for a teammate?

She remembered what Shisui told her the last time they spoke. Kakashi had wanted a technique. A burial technique specifically for the Uchiha. Kakashi had wanted to bring Obito home.

"We were supposed to go back for him." She said, her heart breaking.

Jiraiya's expression softened into regret,

"Ah, forgive me Rin. That was cruel of me."

"I want them back." She sniffled, wiping snot on the back of her hands. "I want them both back. This stupid war is supposed to be over."

Her tears spilled past her chin. She could no longer see the fire. "I miss them so much."

Jiraiya let out a sigh.

"I miss my teammates too."

Gamatarou returned, just before dawn, to report that the deed was done. Obito's grave was gone. Jiraiya handed the toad back his summoning scroll without a word.

Now, sunlight shone on top of their heads. Grass rustled at their feet.

It felt surreal.

Jiraiya cleared his throat.

"There are two types of possessions. The first is an active possession. The second is a passive possession. Some priestesses do not call them possessions at all but a guardian spirit. A house ghost or an ancestor who fought bravely and died before their time."

"Do you think Obito could be my guardian spirit?" Rin asked hopefully.

Jiraiya shook his head. "I do not. The Uchiha burn their bodies for a reason. There are no written records of Uchiha possessions. But my father was a Senju through his mother and through them, I know that ghosts can be vindictive."

And as soon as Jiraiya mentioned his Senju grandmother, Rin knew that Jiraiya would not be fair to Obito.

"There must be a way to find out." She said. She remembered certain house ceremonies at the beginning of the year. Like leaving the doors and windows open. Preparing an extra seat for grandmothers and grandfathers she never knew.

Their search for Orochimaru was put on hold. Jiraiya did not want to take her back to Konoha in her state. And the Earth-Fire border was a treasure trove of supernatural artifacts, gravestones and shrines built to appease the departed.

"Ah," A shrine priestess said, laughter muffled from behind the dished face of a monster she could not name. "The gentleman has discerning tastes."

Jiraiya preened at the praise.

With a flourish, the shrine priestess tucked the box of charms back into her sleeve and instead presented a second box made of dark wood. The lid was patterned with stripes of mother-of-pearl and when opened, screeched in protest from the rusted hinges.

Jiraiya squinted at the items inside. Rin fought the urge to sneeze. Something about the shrine made the back of her head itch. She twisted her fingers in her lap, tracing shapes in the thick cloud of incense.

"Here."

"Eh?"

Jiraiya held out a small pouch to put around her neck. It was small but a masterful piece of work. Each panel was folded with different colored silk, stitched together with a gold thread.

"A wise choice." The shrine priestess said. "It's a trap for spirits that mean you harm."

"Nothing's happening." Rin observed after she put it on.

"Then perhaps there is nothing that means you harm."

"You serve a demon." Jiraiya reminded her.

"Yet you are still here." The shrine priestess was old. Closer to Jiraiya's age than a girl's. In the back country, people were far and few in between. Wars drove people from villages. Peace pulled them back. But there were graves that needed tending. Spirits who wanted to be heard.

"What can you tell us?"

The woman shrugged, tucking her scarf around her wrinkled chin.

"She has a ghost of a child clinging to her. Perhaps it hopes that she will be its mother. More than that I cannot say."

"Is there anyone we can speak to around here?"

The shrine priestess' voice was guarded.

"There is a clan closer to Iwa that practices _Wu_."

"Wu?" Rin asked.

"Tsk, perhaps you know it by a different name. They are onmyouji that divined victories and defeats during the last war. They will know what you must do."

Jiraiya thanked her for her services and placed a handful of ryo in front of her. The shrine priestess cut a short nod.

"My dear." She said to Rin. "A word."

Rin looked to Jiraiya. Jiraiya nodded.

As soon as the door closed behind him the shrine priestess said, "Be careful girl. Your teacher walks a path of ruin." Her hand closed around the ryo, shiny metal peeking out from under the stump of her fingers. "Have courage. You live yet."

Rin nodded and at the last minute, made an offering of ryo.

The shrine priestess smiled from behind her mask.

"Take care."

Infiltrating Iwa was easy.

Officially, it was peacetime. They should have been able to waltz in; they weren't looking for a fight.

But their new alliance was still raw. Rin could not say that she wouldn't kill the first Iwa-nin they came across. She still had the exploding tag in her bag. The one with the name of the Kamizuru chunin she killed.

The village they went to was renowned for fortune telling. It did not have a name. The locals called it the-place-between-the-rocks. When she saw it, she understood why.

Early morning, fortune tellers were setting up shop on the streets. Bright lanterns hung from decorative poles. People shouted their wares. Catch of the day. Imported fruit. Some announced proven love tonics on top of their lungs. Others passed around flyers for a kabuki performance at a nearby inn.

As the sun rose, the light touched upon the eight petals of a lotus carved into the mountain side making them appear to sway. And at its center was a manor fit for a daimyo.

"You won't be able to get in sirrah. Not without an appointment." Said a barmaid, serving them drinks. She had shooed them into a corner as soon as she caught their state of dress and stink, away from an opulent corner where a card game between three men and a maybe-prostitute was ongoing. "The Seifuujin clan, they are secretive. Why, it took the Earth Daimyo a boon to seek audience and even then, it is said that the head's sister-wife forced his hand."

The barmaid crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up for a great effect.

Jiraiya fumbled with his wallet and tipped her with a piece of actual gold.

Rin sighed.

"Bring me your best wine."

The barmaid winked.

"Of course."

"What is a sister-wife?" Rin asked.

The barmaid glanced at her.

"Lord Tegaki has a sister. The Honorable Tosogare. He married her to consolidate power. It is said that he killed his elder brother when he wasn't powerful enough to oppose him."

A table went flying in the air.

"You lying whore!" A man shouted.

"Oh kami-sama, not again." The barmaid muttered, tucking her breasts back under her collar.

Rin saw that the game in the corner of the room had ended and judging by the pile of money the woman had in her lap, the men lost badly.

When the men threatened violence, no one stepped into help. Not even the barmaid who had cowed a busboy into fetching someone named 'Kuroi'.

The way the men were moving, the woman didn't have time to wait for 'Kuroi'.

Before a fist landed on the woman's powdered face, Rin kicked the man's knee out from under him, causing his head to crack on the seat of a chair. He fell with a groan and a large dent on his forehead.

"I did tell you that you would lose." The woman said in a surprisingly deep voice, pocketing her winnings in her gold-embroidered sleeves.

Rin's eyes narrowed.

"Wait, you're not a..."

"Just because your brother is one of Tegaki's lackeys...!" Another man blustered. Jiraiya sat him back down with a swift chop to the top of his head.

"That's no way to speak to a lady."

"How rude Enma-san." The woman laughed. "Are you implying that I cannot defend myself?"

The woman she had saved was a _man_.

The man Rin had knocked to the ground began to crawl away.

"Sora!"

A man burst in the bar and took in the scene.

"Kuroi," The cross-dresser pouted. "Where have you been?"

"Where have I been—" Kuroi sputtered. "Where were you?! You're supposed to be at the compound!"

"Oh yes that," Sora tossed the barmaid a coin for her troubles. "I suppose I can go back now."

To Rin, he winked. "Thank you miss." And dropped a kiss on top of her head.

Rin blushed. Despite the makeup and the strange state of dress, the man was very good looking. She caught a scent of cinnamon and pepper before he turned around. "Say, you two are here for a reading right?"

"Yep." Jiraiya said, picking his nose. Rin mimed a cutting motion with her hand. Her mentor ignored her.

"Come to the compound." Sora invited. "Tell them Sora sent you."

Kuroi despaired in the background.

After they were done with their meal—on the house, the barmaid said, on account of the fact that the tables were the only casualties.

Rin noticed that their barmaid, Yachi, did not return the gold.

"Sora likes to have fun when his man is not around." Yachi explained. "And if he is around, he likes to sneak out."

Rin decided against asking the obvious question. Like why Sora was married to a man. Or why he was dressed like a woman. An unmarried woman at that. With her luck, it was probably a clan matter.

The onmyouji of the-place-between-the-rocks were tall. Even their women were able to look Jiraiya in the eye without much effort. And Jiraiya was trying but it was probably hard for him to remember their mission when his eye was in line with his favorite assets.

"Sensei." Rin hissed when the Sannin began swaying from blood loss.

"Such busty beauties." He sighed.

"You here to have your fortunes read?" A woman asked in a bored tone of voice.

"Of course my dear." Jiraiya simpered. Patting his wallet, he said, "If you could point us to your _very_ best..."

The woman's eyes went to the wallet first.

"Sora asked for us." Rin interrupted. She had worked at the markets long enough to spot a hustler when she saw one."

The woman immediately lost interest.

"Fine, follow me."

"My friends from the bar!"

Sora had changed out of his kimono, abandoning the heavy obi for something no less elaborate. The white and mint furisode flowed with dabs of texture that made it appear as though the fabric had been spun from sea foam. Rin felt her face grow hot when she realized that his collar was sheer and climbed in a lattice pattern just under the bob of his throat.

He bowed once behind him to a shrine and to them which they reciprocated.

When they sat down, she saw that there was another in the room with them.

Kuroi was there and his glare could have set the room on fire. Beside them, a young man had taken up position in front of the sliding doors.

She startled. Judging by Jiraiya's reaction, he too had not sensed either of them.

"That's just Kuroi and Kyou." Sora introduced helpfully. "Just ignore them."

The two men wore no visible headbands. Either they weren't shinobi or they were missing-nin.

Clearing his throat, Sora spread majong sticks in a fan on top of his reading table.

"So? What can I do for Jiraiya the Toad Sage? Your health? Family? Wealth? Or even love?"

"We're not here for that." Jiraiya said and placed a Hokage's seal on top of the table. "We'd appreciate your discretion regarding this matter."

There was a pause. Sora considered the Hokage's seal for a moment. He tapped the metal, allowing it to ring hollow in the room.

"Well then, this is serious." He tucked a hand up his sleeve and took out a pack of cigarettes from the inseam. He did not light it but the end glowed with the strike of red flame.

"The Fire Daimyo has no power here." Kuroi pointed out. "Sora, you don't have to do this."

"But where is the fun in that?" Sora asked, blowing smoke. "So, no love for you then?"

"It is of a spiritual matter."

"So it is." Sora sighed.

Jiraiya cleared his throat.

"I expected to seek audience with Lord Tegaki."

Sora leaned back, feeding ashes into an elaborate fire pot at his knee.

"Ho, Lord Tegaki doesn't see just anyone."

"Show some respect." Kuroi rebuked at the same time. "You are speaking to Sora of Yamagaze."

"Don't scare them Kuroi." Sora replied mildly. He turned his attention to her instead. "Were you surprised that I was a man?" He asked kindly. When she nodded, he continued, "It's tradition. Practitioners of Wu are women you see. If a family does not produce girls, the eldest unwed boy takes the part."

"But..." Rin's voice became small. "Yachi said you were married... and you're wearing..." She mulled this over for a moment. "Are you...?"

"That's right." Sora grinned. "Despite this face and dynamite body, I'm still a virgin. As pure as driven snow."

Kuroi mock-retched quietly in the background. Kyou said in a flat voice, "Get on with it,"

"But then Kuroi is..."

She snuck a look at Kuroi.

"We were wed." Sora laughed. "But alas, no luck in bed."

"If it's payment you need," Rin started, tugging on the pouch around her neck.

"Keep it." Sora said. "Only fools spit in the face of protection."

"Then you will help us?" Jiraiya asked.

Sora clenched his cigarette between his teeth.

"I am Sora of Yamagaze. Third of Tsuyoshi and the least." Kyou and Kuroi winced. "But I will hear your story mononoke-san."

He stared at her for a moment. "I did not know they made _taishiki_ out of the Uchiha clan."

Rin swallowed.

"Kyou." Sora called. The young man looked away. "Kyou." Sora repeated insistently.

"Che." The young man huffed and turned around, sliding the doors open. "Get up old man, we're being kicked out."

"Rin is my student and responsibility." Jiraiya said.

"You have no love for the Uchiha." Sora warned. "If you get caught in the backlash, I cannot guarantee that you will like what you see."

"I am a shinobi of the leaf."

"Even so."

After a moment, Jiraiya asked, "Rin?"

"I'm fine sensei."

"Ah. Call me if you need me."

"I will."

Kuroi sat behind her. His hand on the tanto tied to his waist. If he struck, she would have no way to defend herself. As Kuroi had reminded her, she was in the Land of Earth. Iwa territory. A Hokage's seal could not protect her.

"Please do not be afraid." Sora said gently. He pushed the table aside and lit a second cigarette. The remains of the first went in the fire pot where it burned along with sticks of silver vine. She would have claimed blaspheme except neither Jiraiya nor she had mentioned Obito's family name.

"How did you know?"

Sora held her hands.

"How do I know anything?"

And gently blew smoke in her face.

When she opened her eyes, Obito was standing over them.

"Obito." She gasped, trying to get up.

Sora held her firm and chakra sparked between their palms, cackling like the beginnings of a chidori.

"Rin." Obito answered. The smoke from Sora's cigarette swept through him but stopped at something unseen behind the ghost of her dead teammate. Instinctively, her hair stood on end.

There was a clear line between the living and the dead. The dead were to be respected. But they were not people. The things behind Obito felt wrong.

"Obito," She ordered. "Get away from there."

The muscles in her calves bunched, ready to spring at any moment. She squeezed Sora's hands once and if she hadn't been so desperate to grab Obito and to get him away, she wouldn't have looked back at him. She would have missed the expression on Sora's face entirely.

Sora was frozen. He had become pale, almost the exact shade of the kimono he wore and the lattice that cradled his throat.

"Sora." Kuroi warned, sensing something amiss.

At his voice, Sora let go and a wave of chakra flattened everything in the room.

"What the ever-loving fuck?!" Kuroi exclaimed when he got up.

"Aha." Sora shook as he set the fire pot upright. "Ouch, I should have expected that. My apologies."

Kyou and Jiraiya scrambled over the broken doors. Once Jiraiya was sure that she was alright, he sat down against the wall with a relieved sigh.

"I haven't lost a student since Minato was a genin. Don't you dare tarnish my record now."

"Kuroi." Sora grinned. "Can you get my brother?"

"Why?"

Sora ignored the question.

"And Kyou, please let Lord Tegaki know that we have a client in need of his skills."

"Send Kuroi for both." Kyou said, bored.

"Aha, but what would people say about a married woman alone in a room with a bachelor."

"You are with clients. That's hardly alone."

"Please."

"Che." Kyou looked away and with a body flicker, he was gone.

As soon as he was satisfied that they were alone, Sora immediately bent over the fire pot where he spat gouts of black blood over the hissing embers. His blood broiled and cooked between the silver vine, filling the room with the smell of rancid meat.

Rin knelt at his side. She pressed a palm against his back but could not find mortal wounds. Nothing that tugged at her chakra coils begging to be fed. Sora's chakra began to retreat deeper inside him as though bleeding somewhere she could not see. And at the moment she feared that it might disappear, Sora stuck his fist in the open flame.

"Jiraiya sir! Help me!"

Jiraiya pulled him back but Sora was surprisingly strong. His sleeve had caught on fire and began to smolder from the silk clouds to his wrist. Rin ran her hands over the cracked skin and smoothed the blisters back in the flesh.

"Sorry," Sora huffed, "I didn't mean to scare you."

She had no water. Water took up space so shinobi carried water tablets to treat any water they might have to drink. Rin took the container of fermented drink off Jiraiya much to the Sannin's protest. Once the tablet dissolved, she rubbed it across Sora's lips, urging him to drink.

Sora did not drink.

He began to sag in Jiraiya's arms. She felt his chakra ebb once more. And as she prepared to pump his heart, a stranger took the place of Jiraiya, folding the limp body of Sora into the crook of his arm. Sora barely stirred. She saw a trail of blood starting from one nostril.

The newcomer wrapped a hand around Sora's throat.

"Souken!" Kuroi protested before Rin could.

"Kuroi, the sword." Souken demanded.

"Souken-sama,"

"_Now_."

Kuroi drew his tanto and brought it down on Souken's wrist. Something unseen, intangible, unknowable, dispelled itself with a scream. Jiraiya spat out a short curse But Rin quickly unraveled the bandages from her pack, half-fearing that the man would be left with a stump. But he raised his hand and brought it down on the fire pot—these men and their obsession with _fire_, she thought—biting through his lips. All the while, he did not let go of Sora.

"_Guan Shi Yin Pusa, Guan Shi Yin Pusa, Namo Ami_..."

Kuroi hurriedly shaped his hand into tiger-ox-rat and poured a stream of water over Souken's head.

"_Kai_."

Sora coughed up a puff of smoke and began to breathe more easily.

"Are you alright?"

Kuroi's gaze snapped to Jiraiya.

"Are you serious?!"

"Kuroi." Souken said softly, wiping his forehead. "Take them to Tegaki-sama."

"What?" Kuroi sputtered, shock of black hair falling across his eyes. "But you."

"I will be fine."

"Let me take a look at it at least." Kuroi pointed, gesturing to the burns on Souken's hand.

"Kuroi, you can look at it when you come back." He smiled. Sora's smile. "I promise."

Kuroi went down on one, reluctant knee.

"As you wish."

"What was that?" Jiraiya asked as they hurried through the compound.

"Bad news."

"What does that mean?"

Kuroi's eyes were hard.

"Half the things I hear about the Uchiha are hearsay. But I know a taishiki isn't created on whim."

"What is a taishiki?"

"It's a spirit." Kuroi grunted. "I don't know what you call them in Konoha. It's a spirit deliberately drawn from a child by starving him under a rock."

Rin choked.

"Who was he?"

"He was my friend." Rin said fiercely. "And I failed him."

They arrived at a garden, richly planted with water lilies and reeds. Koi swirled lazily in the water, fanning their silk fins through the spotted sunlight. Rin had no time to appreciate such beauty. She followed Kuroi past the glorious stems of blue iris and cardinal flowers to a woman swinging her legs like a girl. At her breast napped a baby, a newborn, with a soft skull and curls of fawn-colored hair. Rin's heart melted at the sight and she wondered if Kushina's was a boy or a little girl.

"Kyou-chan was by." The girl remarked in a syrupy voice. "Tegaki is inside. He's upset."

An attendant kneeling beside her, clearly an honor guard, glowered at Jiraiya.

"This is an urgent matter."

The woman waved a free hand, cooing at the baby when it stirred.

They entered the grand hall of the Seifuujin. It reminded her of the time she had visited the Uchiha compound with Minato and Kakashi. The clan leaders sat in a semi-circle in front of a divider decorated with butterflies. She thought she spied a scrap of pink slither behind it.

Kuroi bowed. A man stood as he did.

"My apologies Lord Sousuke."

"Sora?"

"The Honorable Souken is with him." Kuroi answered.

Sousuke dismissed him with a grunt. But he looked to the man at the center, Seifuujin Tegaki.

Tegaki nodded.

"Go."

Kyou, who had been waiting, followed Sousuke out. After a moment, Kuroi did as well.

"And what does Jiraiya the Toad Sage want with us?" Asked a young woman in lieu of her clan head. She handed Lord Tegaki a lit pipe and he breathed deep, waiting for an answer.

"I seem to have a ghost problem."

"You are aware you are unwelcome here."

Jiraiya held up the Hokage's seal.

"You are onmyouji. You serve whomever has the deeper pocket."

"Charming. You always were." Tegaki sneered. "But the taishiki has harmed one of my own. I cannot let the insult slide. Do you wish him sealed or banished?"

"What?" Rin protested. "No, this is Obito. Don't hurt him."

"Do you know what your friend has become girl?" Tegaki asked. "He is on the precipice of becoming something that not even the Shinigami will swallow once complete. Your Pure Land is beyond him now."

"Can't you help him?" Rin pleaded.

Tegaki bore his teeth in a wolfish grin.

"I don't have to."

"Please."

A figure rose from behind the butterfly divider, casting a crane's shadow over the family head. Tegaki's eyes widened and at once, the Seifuujin bowed in allegiance to the man who drew back the blinds.

"Then allow me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[1]** Onmyodo ('The Way of Yin and Yang') is a traditional Japanese esoteric cosmology, a mixture of natural science and occultism - onmyouji
> 
> **[2]** Furisode are the most formal style of kimono worn by young unmarried women in Japan.
> 
> **[3]** Mononoke - vengeful spirits, dead spirits, live spirits, or spirits in Japanese classical literature and folk religion that were said to do things like possess individuals and make them suffer, cause disease, or even cause death. It is also a word sometimes used to refer to yōkai or henge ("changed beings").
> 
> **[4]**Taishiki - A type of ghost, usually a very young child or a stillbirth used here with a bit of creative license. A taishiki can be created by starving a child in a very dark place. Food is offered to them and when they reach for the food, their hand is cut off. The hand is used to control the dead child's soul.
> 
> Creative license is applied here. There is different lore regarding this type of ghost depending on which literature you reference.


	8. Chapter 8

The Honorable Tosogare was beautiful in a way hawks were beautiful, the way lightning-forged blades were beautiful and the way a flowering adder's root was beautiful.

Rin shivered at the way candlelight licked his waxy skin, illuminating features so fine they might as well have been etched on eggshells. Tosogare's hair had been shorn short, curling just past the ears as though he had recently been abed with fever. He cut a contrasting figure against Tegaki who stood and took his hand, black against white, dark where his brother Tegaki was fair, his coloring closer to white than Kakashi's which had always come off as someone gone prematurely grey but darker than Jiraiya whose hair had never worn any other color.

Tosogare smiled in satisfaction as they all averted their eyes and clasped his collar closed under his throat, hiding the flat expanse of his chest.

Staring down at her nails, Rin remembered that Lord Tegaki had a wife, a sister-wife. Yachi failed to mention that the Honorable Tosogare was a man.

She inwardly shrieked.

What was wrong with this family's _men_?

There was something painful about looking directly at the man they called Tegaki's wife. It wasn't that Tosogare was blinding though it would have surprised Rin if he was. Like Sora, Tosogare was tall and whip-thin, slender-necked with a carved chin. But his clothes hung loose in places where flesh should have been full. Where the breadth of his bones should have pressed the scarlet camellia into full bloom.

Tosogare was a sick man. He was a dying man and it terrified her.

"You." Jiraiya said in recognition, swallowing the dry lump in his throat.

Rin peeked around.

Jiraiya's face was clammy with sweat. Even when he had stood at Obito's grave, seen Obito's ghost and feared Obito's vengeance enough to have a summon raze the spot to the ground, the man had stood firm in his decision. But before the Honorable Tosogare, who was sickly and half-blind, swaying like he was a tree caught in the wind, Jiraiya had the haunted look of a cornered thing.

Tosogare turned his face in their direction.

"Ah Toad Sage Jiraiya. Still without manners." He said evenly. His attendants bristled at Jiraiya for speaking out of turn. "Was my reading satisfactory?"

"It is as you said." Jiraiya answered. "The war ended. But not without a cost."

"Nothing is free." Tosogare hummed. "Everything has its price."

Rin jumped when Jiraiya slammed a fist against the floor.

"Too high a price! You said...!" he was cut off when a piece of string closed off his throat.

"Know your place Jiraiya the Sannin."

The woman with red hair, the one that had filled Tegaki's pipe stood at the perceived impudence.

Her sleeve had unraveled to many strands. Though she did not lift a hand, neither Tosogare nor Tegaki lifted a hand, the Seifuujin were there. Rin and Jiraiya were surrounded. She could feel a weight press down between her shoulders. Candle smoke cut off midstream and knee height, blocked by something unseen.

Like when Sora had flattened a room just so he would not have to look at Obito.

Rin realized that the Seifuujin clan were not mere mediums. They were not individuals caring for rundown shrines. She recognized her own. The Seifuujin were a clan of killers.

Sweat beaded down the side of her face.

They had misstepped badly—Jiraiya believed that they were here for an exorcism. Rin wanted Obito's final resting place. But if the shrine priestess had been telling the truth, the Seifuujin could do more than that. If the Honorable Tosogare could divine the future, it stood to reason he could also change the course of history.

She wracked her brain for a way out. To buy time for Jiraiya to find a way out.

Blood gleamed from the strings tied around Jiraiya's throat. The string was very thin. She couldn't imagine the control it took to imbue the strings with enough chakra to use them as weapons.

"You know each other." Rin said after a pause.

The strings loosened enough for Jiraiya to talk.

"Go on," Tosogare allowed. "Tell her exactly how we know each other."

The woman released her strings enough for Jiraiya to talk.

"He was a prisoner of Uzushio during the Second Shinobi War." Jiraiya wheezed, looking passionately resentful. "It was only border skirmishes then. Before me and Tsunade and that bastard Orochimaru were sent out into the front lines. The Third wanted to be sure that there would be a war and he commissioned a reading from Uzushio. They brought us a boy from an unknown clan and told us that he could see the future. I was there when he foretold the end of Uzushio."

"Aye, I remember. I was very lucky to escape when I did. Not all of us were. I also remember seeing your future in the smoke, on the bones of the men you slew for the fox you worshiped as a god."

Jiraiya trembled.

"How dare _you_..."

"Jiraiya the Sannin, sage, murderer, kin-slayer." Tosogare rattled off the titles like they were mere observations and not epithets, each pulling the tension tighter and tighter until Rin felt she could cut it with a knife. "Shall I read for you again?"

Tosogare was playing with them.

"Stop." Rin interrupted. "That's not why we came. You said you could help my friend. Please, help."

Tosogare laughed.

"Of course I will help you."

Rin had not expected that answer. She was dumbstruck by the sheer gratitude that filled her. She had expected a fight. There was always a fight.

"Really?" She stammered.

"Rin." Jiraiya hissed.

"Ani-ue." Tegaki said, "This is beneath you."

Tosogare pushed his brother's face away.

"Tegaki, I am your wife, not your pet. I am doing this."

"They are shinobi." Came Tegaki's muffled response.

"I know."

To Rin, Tosogare said—"You were very brave to have come here."

"He was my friend. He was a good person." She said fiercely. "He didn't deserve to be left behind—I was wrong to leave him there."

"Ah, but you would not have liked the person he would have become had he lived." Tosogare said, almost like an afterthought.

Rin would never know if she would have liked the person Obito could have become. If he would have liked the person she had become. But they were shinobi. Their personal feelings came second to their duties. Shinobi were tools of war. If not in war, they would have fought battles elsewhere.

Maybe everything would have turned out the same. Kakashi might have turned traitor for a fallen comrade. She might have apprenticed herself to Jiraiya anyway. Maybe, Obito might have become the Hokage after Minato.

She would never know.

Obito was dead. Kakashi was gone. She had set aside her medical training.

Rin knew now that Jiraiya would not help her become a sage. His limitations were her own. Jiraiya's students had all been geniuses with monstrous stores of chakra. She was just herself. Ordinary Rin. She would have to find her own path. Her own way of taking control of destiny and bringing it to heel. To bring both Kakashi and Obito home. To make the world around her be right again. She had to try.

"I wonder if you know what you are asking." Tosogare said gently. "Did you mentor ever share knowledge worth a grain of salt or does he see you as another stepping stone in his quest to find the children of the prophesy?"

"The who?" Rin asked, bewildered.

"We are not the only ones who can dreamwalk or speak to dead things. I have ways. We all have ways. It's in your face, your actions, your voice. Sometimes, the wind whispers us things that are useful and at times painful to hear. I want you to stop here and think about what you are asking me. Your teacher wants you to stop here. What do you want Nohara-san?"

"I want you to help me find Uchiha Obito."

Tosogare spread a hand towards her.

"Come then. Help me prepare."

The red-haired woman, spinning thread back in to cloth, said bitterly, "Jiraiya, you are wrong. The war was won for a pittance."

Rin watched as Tosogare's head sank lower and lower under the weight of his crown. He let out a sigh and turned up his face for the grease paint, black coal around his eyes and red paint on his lips.

"How did Uzushio fall anyway?" Rin asked.

What she knew of Uzushio was in text books. She knew that Uzushio was a great village once. Its reigning clan, Uzumaki, was a distant relation to the Senju. The Uzumaki were envied for their sealing techniques. Somewhere along the line, jealousy became fear. Fear destroyed Uzushio, the Uzumaki, and the Senju.

Small weapons like the kunai were the easiest to seal. The more advanced techniques could conceal a corpse inside a scroll. Scrolls could summon contracted animals or people. Was that why the Uzumaki were wiped out?

"He lied." Jiraiya said flatly. "Uzushio fell but not in the way he said it would. He was... old enough to be difficult at that age. Old enough to know that the things he said would have gotten him killed."

She nodded. She imagined Fudou would have resorted to such measures if the war had not ended when it did.

"A person like that wouldn't have given you a reading." Rin pointed out.

"No. We had, hostages."

The sudden wave of killing intent had Rin groping for scalpels and Jiraiya's hand in the shape of an ox.

"Don't." The red-haired woman said, fingering the hem of her sleeve. "That is not a story for you to tell."

Rin shivered at the raw hatred in the woman's voice.

"Then why help? Why not sell us to the Iwa?"

"Guren, Rin." Tosogare called pleasantly. "Come sit with me. Tegaki is a terrible conversationalist."

Tegaki grumbled.

Guren bowed.

"As you wish, Tosogare-sama."

The killing intent dissipated.

Tosogare sat serene as he was draped in silks, richer and finer than anything she'd ever seen, inlaid with gold thread and mother-of-pearl. He smiled when Guren knelt at his side, twisting his bejeweled fingers into the chakra-heavy sleeves.

"So how do you know Jiraiya?" Rin asked carefully.

"Did Jiraiya not tell you?" Tosogare teased.

Rin shook her head.

"I want to hear your side of the story."

She thought Tosogare looked pleasantly surprised.

"My parents only had sons. Me, then Tegaki. Our gift cannot be passed down to men. Naturally, one of us had to be a woman."

Rin did not see anything natural about the logic but nodded along.

"So you became your brother's wife."

"That came after." Tosogare replied smoothly. "This gift chooses the strongest, only the strongest. And so I inherited my family's art and the consequences thereafter."

"But you survived. Because you're strong. Powerful. I wish I had power."

"Do you?" Tosogare asked in amusement. "I know many powerful people. Jiraiya is one of them. I cannot say that it has brought him much happiness."

"But if you have the power to do so, you can make your happiness and keep it. If you have the power, you can protect the things that you care about."

Guren still had both of her sleeves but Rin's throat felt tight.

"Last night," Rin said, "I think, no, I know I saw him. I think that, until that moment, I was hoping he was alive." She squeezed the heel of her palm against her left eye. Grief threatened to overwhelm her. It hadn't when Obito first died. When she had left her friend and teammate under a pile of rocks as a plaything for the people who came after. "I was so sorry."

She had only cried after. After when it was too late.

When it had been too late even for Obito and his clumsy apologies.

Rin fought in the Third Shinobi War. Konoha honored her as one of its heroes. She had seen people at the hospital like Kizaku who did not fight and Fudou who had feared being sent out repeatedly but could not help but fight.

She always thought that she had the nerves of steel. But when she saw Obito in the twilight, she was suddenly the thirteen-year-old who did not understand that her friend was gone forever. That she had lost a teammate.

"I know you are Nohara-san." Tosogare said gently. "You can tell him yourself."

"Is he... talking right now?"

"I can hardly get a word in edgewise."

It explained the pained expression on Tegaki's face.

"I must warn you, your friend is here. But so are the echoes of what he used to be."

"What do you mean?"

Konoha subscribed to the concept of a Pure Land. A place where souls went after death. Tegaki had implied earlier that the Pure Land was where Obito was supposed to be.

But according to her grandmother, sometimes, if a soul had unfinished business, they were reborn into a new body.

"Like to his great-grandfather or something?" She guessed. Konoha was found not even a century ago.

"No." And something in Tosogare's voice made her sit up and pay attention. "To the founding."

Everyone sat in a ring with their backs to the wall. Tegaki sat west, Jiraiya east, Guren south, Rin north, and Tosogare stood at the center.

"You have something in your pocket." Tosogare said suddenly. "May I?"

Rin's hands went to her pocket and drew out a roll of used bandages.

"This was his?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

As soon as the Honorable Tosogare touched it, the bandages withered to ash. She couldn't help but let out a short whimper which she smothered with her fist.

Someone began to chant in a high voice. It was no language she recognized. The words swelled upwards and down, queuing drums into a steady beat. Tosogare flicked open his war fans, spreading them like the wings on a bird. His shadow fell across the floor and transformed into the image of a dancing crane.

Chakra manipulation—she thought. As her eyes got used to the movements, she realized that they were like hand seals. A flow of snake-dragon-snake-rooster-rat. Subtle and complex. Pressure began to build around Tosogare. Rin felt as though the very air was closing down on her.

And there, at the periphery of her vision was Obito. One moment a chunin graduate, the other, a boy crushed under rocks. His eyes spun red into the dreaded sharingan. The three commas stretched until they joined into a spiral at the center of his eye, red-in-black.

Obito joined Tosogare at the center of the room, mimicking his movements. He was not the boy she remembered or the boy she mourned. His hair was slicked down like it was wet.

"Obito." She gasped and his gaze turned to her. Sharingan in his left eye socket, the void staring out from the right. "What happened to you?"

The first question fell from her lips without hesitation. She felt the sting of Jiraiya's stare on the side of her face but couldn't help herself. She wanted to know; she needed to know if she could have saved her friend.

"Rin? Rin! You're here!"

"Obito." Rin repeated. "What happened?"

"I... I was trapped under rocks. I saved you?" Obito groped his face with his crushed hand. Digging her nails into her thighs, Rin replied, "Yes, you saved me. You saved Kakashi. You saved us both."

Obito looked relieved. His words came fast. She had an impression that if she knew more, was paying attention, she could understand what he was saying. But she only heard her friend stumble over words, an explanation for which she had waited for more than _two years_.

"Someone found me. They kept me." The left side of his face was covered in blood. Her stomach churned at the sight. She could taste the iron in the air. "I.."

Tosogare's fan swept through him and as though startled, Obito joined him in the movement of tiger-ox-boar.

"I made a promise." He amended. "I think I made a promise."

The boar closed into a snake.

"The promise is binding." Tegaki muttered.

"Yes." Obito said breathlessly. "They kept my body but I made a promise. I gave him my word."

"Kakashi." Rin said.

"Yes. He is one of them." he turned to her. "He found me Rin."

"Something wrong?"

His new partner stared down at him with reserved politeness. He hadn't gone for his sword yet but it was a close thing. Kakashi could see his gill marks flutter nervously on his cheeks. They'd have to work on that. Later. Much later. When his head didn't feel like it was about to explode.

"No, it's." Kakashi ground the heel of his palm into his left eye, willing the images to go away. It meant nothing. He knew they weren't real. He just needed more sleep.

For a moment, he could have sworn he saw Rin.

He bit his tongue and let his hand fall at his side.

"_Maa_ Kisame." He beamed. "You're so negative. Nothing is wrong.

Kakashi kicked his quarry on the side and turned it over.

"Let's proceed, shall we?"


	9. Chapter 9

"Kakashi found you?"

_"Then why didn't he come back?"_

He liked to pretend that it was the lack of oxygen that made his head spin. Underground, it was the same, damp unfiltered crap they breathed day in and day out. Sooner or later, they were going to run out of breathable air and save the shinobi nation another war.

Beside him, Kisame, even with the advantage of his blue-tinged skin, looked ill. The gill marks on his cheeks fluttered as their prisoner gurgled under the knife.

Kakashi rubbed his mouth hard against the fabric of his mask, nauseated by the wash of copper and ammonia in the air. It chilled him to think that Minato, Jiraiya, the Third Hokage—hell, even Danzo and the rest of the useless council elders—had all missed the fact that they were nestling a serpent at their breast.

Pleased, Orochimaru's face cut itself into a thin smile.

"You are dismissed."

Outside the lab, the air had a bite of mold. But as soon as Kisame closed the heavy doors behind him, Orochimaru doing sage-knows-what to the poor fucker who was dumb enough to string together a sentence with his name and immortality, he sucked it down like a dying man because he made a promise. He made a promise to Obito.

It was funny.

If it hadn't been for Obito, he wouldn't have left the village. He wouldn't have had the courage to do what needed to be _done_.

Kakashi thought that for him at least, there would always be a before and an after. Before Obito's death and an after. The person he had been before Obito's death had held himself together with a desperate sort of strength that followed a tragedy. The aftermath had instilled a sense of dignity, a sense of purpose with which to conduct himself.

Deep down, he knew that it was all bullshit.

Obito was two years gone. Kakashi was the older one, the taller one, and the stronger one. Kakashi was still the self-important, arrogant whelp who got his friend killed. The only difference between before and after was that after, he knew it. He couldn't un-know it. He could not un-know the price of failure sitting in his left eye.

"That was bad." Kisame said mildly.

"Say it like it is Kisame." Kakashi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ame was bad. Living puppets are bad. This is something else."

Kisame hummed in response.

"They say that Kakuzu of Taki has five hearts."

A pause.

"Guess we're sleeping outside tonight."

"Iwa is a week away Kakashi-san. Should we not prepare for an early start?"

He shrugged.

"You and I both know Orochimaru doesn't believe in clairvoyance. He just wants us out of the base. And even if he did believe in it, the Seifuujin will tell us nothing."

"Nothing about Orochimaru's plans perhaps." Kisame suggested.

Kakashi cut him with a look.

In another life, Kisame might have been a shinobi loyal to his village. His sword arm would have been the pride of Kiri. The blood he spilt, those of her enemies. But the Kisame standing before him was a missing-nin who'd thrown his lot with a pack of murderers whose illustrious leader was one senbon shy of a full mission kit. Kakashi did not entertain false hopes as to where Kisame's loyalty lay.

"We'll talk about it later."

"But—"

"Kisame." A copy of Icha Icha Paradise landed in his hand. Kakashi was hoping that a Zetsu would catch a glimpse of its orange cover and ask. Orochimaru had been apoplectic when he found that copies of Jiraiya's work was making rounds in his hideout. "I'm just going to visit my friend."

He patted himself on the back for keeping his voice from breaking. As he walked down to the lower levels, the Zetsu collectively turned their pale faces at him. Some roused themselves from inside walls while others looked hopefully for entertainment.

Kakashi didn't know what the Zetsu were. Clones perhaps. But of no one he knew. He'd flipped through the Bingo Books with Obito's sharingan and recognized Zetsu in none of the faces.

Black Zetsu watched him like a broody hen, yellow eyes glittering in the dark. It followed him from floor to floor, from hallway to hallway until it was satisfied that Kakashi was acting the part of a good little minion, keeping from mischief.

Obito's body was held in a clear tank, suspended in water. Flesh full on one side and smashed in the other. His right arm had been amputated barely a week after Kakashi _found_ Orochimaru's hideout. It had begun to rot. He remembered it very well. The Sannin had taken perverse joy in taking the pulpy hand first and its tiny finger bones, cut up to the elbow then the shoulder.

He didn't know what Orochimaru did with the arm. For Obito's sake, he hoped that the decay took it, that the decay took all of him. But Obito stayed just as Kakashi stayed.

Clearing his throat, Kakashi patted his hair back, trying to tame the crest of his hair into something presentable. Something that looked like effort. Obito would have understood. Funny how everything he knew about his teammate came after his death when it was too late for him to do anything about it.

Kakashi remembered when Obito's name had been dug into the memorial stone, his body unable to be retrieved. But then his eye turned. Obito's last gift had shown him that the other boy did not die in the land of grass under a pile of rocks. He died after. After his team left. After Kakashi had given him up for dead. When he couldn't even give him a proper burial.

Shisui's technique scalded his throat as he pressed a palm into the warm glass. Orochimaru hadn't dissected his friend yet. Which meant that he still needed Obito's body for something. And Orochimaru had plans. He had so many plans.

Kakashi did not believe in an afterlife. His father hadn't been able to teach him otherwise before he died and what little he heard from villagers appealed to him even less. He wondered if Obito had believed in anything during his brief tenure as a shinobi of the Leaf. If he believed in the Will of Fire crap that the Third Hokage and Minato liked to espouse so much.

Obito believed that Hatake Sakumo was a hero.

Palm turned into a fist.

Behind his forehead protector, his left eye was whirling.

Rin couldn't help him; Rin was safe in peacetime Konoha. Rin would mourn her teammates alone because it was the proper thing to do. Because it was the shinobi thing to do.

Kakashi thought he knew death. He thought he knew grief.

The Hyuuga buried their dead. The Uzumaki gave theirs to the sea. The Uchiha buried theirs in pyres that burned straight for seven days and seven nights. Kakashi could not leave Obito anymore than he could have given the Uchiha his sharingan.

The Nara buried their dead in the forest. The Inuzuka in the hills.

This was not the future Obito was meant to see.

Lightning split his nail as he lit the incense sticks one by one and let the smoke dry his right eye.

He would bring Obito's body home.

As the incense sticks burned themselves out, he left.

Gravity sank into her lap. The chanting made her head hurt. The drums made her knees shake.

Obito stared far away. Somewhere Rin could not perceive. Seeing things that she could not see. Hearing things that she could not hear.

In the folds of patterned silk, Tosogare was a rabbit one moment and a rooster the next. Rin held her breath. Held it in as long as she could because coughing might have scared Obito away. It might have scared his soul away, his spirit away, and she would have never gotten another chance to speak to him.

She remembered her great-grandmother telling her stories when she was young. Before the war, before the Academy, when parents had children hoping that they would never know battle. The dead were honored. They were respected and they protected. She tapped the rhythm of her heart on her thigh and knew that at the very least, this ritual couldn't be denied to her. This was no bloodline limit to be coveted like a scandal. Obito was dead. His ghost followed the Honorable Tosogare as he cleaved the air with war fans made of bone and edged in steel. Their arms flowed from the rigid horse to a coiled snake, briefly lifting the veil into afterlife where Obito could turn briefly and look back at her.

Obito was not the boy she remembered. Obito spun as Tosogare pivoted on one heel, hair falling slick across his shoulders, hiding the exposed marrow, smoothing the ruined lines of his left side into shadows.

Rin bit her knuckles as someone behind her pinched her side, as quick as a viper and just as kind, warning her to keep still.

"Hold your place." Guren said sourly from her seat. "Or your friend will cease."

At the center of the room, the Honorable Tosogare was tiring. His jaws tightened as he diffused chakra into his limbs, kneading it with the whole of his body instead of just his hands.

"Rin?"

Breath came out in a sudden gasp from the woman behind her as Obito stepped in front of her, leaning into her, cold where his shape parted the oxygen and left only swirling frost in their wake. Rin snapped awake from her stupor and clenched her fists hard into her knees. Tosogare continued to dance, unknowing or perhaps uncaring that his charge had escaped the center of the room to be with Rin.

It made her hair stand on end. It felt like the time Kakashi tried to kill Uchiha Mikoto. Like all the alarms in her head were going off at once screaming danger, danger, _danger_ and the only thing she could do was watch because this was what she wanted. Not an exorcism. Not closure.

She hadn't wanted to be left behind.

"Rin, what's wrong? You're crying."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Obito! I didn't mean to leave you!"

"Rin." Jiraiya warned her, antsy from her left. "Stop talking to him."

"You didn't leave me." Obito replied, both confused and upset. "I'm here. I'm always here."

She pressed her hands against her mouth.

"Obito, help me find you."

Rin could see the lazy tick of his remaining eye and the haughty nod of chin. She could see the cracked incisors inside his mouth, the torn lips, the rough plains of his cheeks and the push of his ribs. It became easier to see her friend's ghost. Minute details filled in. Like he was becoming more solid, real.

No, that wasn't right, she thought. It was more like all that he had been was being sloughed off thrusting Obito, only Obito, and the essence of him, into realization. Obito's left hand followed Tosogare's sweep in a half-hearted motion before falling.

"Obito." She said firmly, fingers clawing at her knees to hold them steady. "Pay attention, this is important. Where is Kakashi?"

Because Obito's presence in their world depended on the Honorable Tosogare's dance. And by her estimate, he would not last long.

"He's close right now." Obito pouted. "He isn't always."

"What do you mean? Where does he go?"

"Child." Lord Tegaki reprimanded, voice like a crack of whip. Rin jumped. She'd forgotten that they weren't alone. "Where is your body?"

"I think I'm in water." Obito answered after a pause. His voice echoed and the ends of his fingers flickered, losing shape.

Jiraiya cursed under his breath.

"But that doesn't make sense." Rin said. "You said someone found you. You said _Kakashi_ found you."

Kakashi did not come back. Why didn't they all come back?

"Communing with spirits rarely makes sense." Guren said artlessly.

"Focus Obito. You said someone else found you—your body." Rin corrected herself. "Who else found you? And what does that have to do with your promise?"

"I promised to see the future with Kakashi." Obito mumbled. He twitched in place, looking forlornly at Rin. Only at Rin. Waiting for her to give him the answer.

If Rin was able, she would have throttled him.

"Obito," she repeated with a calm breath. "Kakashi found your body. Who else found it?"

"Oh," Obito said. "It was that creepy guy. Orochimaru."

** _"Where is he?"_ **

Before Rin could think, before she could even process what Obito had said, Jiraiya loomed over them both, face blotchy with rage. He didn't raise his voice. He did not spun on his heel as to attack Obito. By the trembling lines by his mouth, Rin knew that Jiraiya was afraid. Afraid of her dead teammate who would never be more than thirteen of age.

Jiraiya had set fire to his empty grave and put leagues between them before being satisfied. Her teacher's teacher, and now her teacher, was a spiritual man. Someone whom she suspected had seen that bedtime stories and terrors swapped at candlelight were true.

"Where is he?"

"Jiraiya," Tegaki snapped. "Sit down."

Several other Seifuujin had gotten to their feet, ready to force Jiraiya down if necessary.

"Where is Orochimaru?" Jiraiya demanded as though he hadn't heard.

Obito blinked in confusion. He seemed surprised to see Jiraiya there. Surprised to see someone other than Rin. And in response, Obito's face turned stony and cold. Darkness found purchase on Obito's ghost and what Rin thought were mere shadows turned his skin like a _fever_.

"You're being rude." Obito said silkily in a tone she did not recognize.

Rin remembered when Sora held her hands to look for Obito, his cigarette smoke sliding off something _unseen_. Obito died alone. Obito had died away from home. No tablet or family altar was made to soothe his soul. The Uchiha gave him up for dead. Rin gave him up for dead. His ghost blackened like the angry ma that haunted riverbeds. Jiraiya stepped sideways, pulling a sake-filled gourd from his belt.

A heartbeat before it happened, Rin saw Lord Tegaki snap his head to where his brother danced a woman's part for a boy he didn't know. A boy whom the Seifuujin said was cursed, a boy his own clan sacrificed as the fortunes of war, a boy who had been her friend and loved her innocently as she was then.

The Honorable Tosogare stopped. His gaze fixed on something Obito had looked towards but failed to find. Something beyond their sight.

His fan slipped from his nerveless fingers and landed heavy on the wooden floor. Tegaki threw an arm out, spinning a wire net to catch his brother when blood gushed from Tosogare's mouth. The man frowned, nose wrinkling as he brought his fingers to smear the redness around his lips. He coughed once and Obito mimicked the movement, blood streaking down his throat. Darkness receded from his face and hid in the crags of his scars and the dips between his ribs.

"Hey mister." Obito wheezed, addressing the Honorable Tosogare. "You don't look so good."

The Honorable Tosogare smiled warmly and fell.

Rin had medical training. She'd worked at a hospital. She should have gone to the Honorable Tosogare as he was laid out on the floor, the Seifuujin gathering around their lord and lady. She should have pumped his heart. Resuscitate him. Something.

Jiraiya splashed Obito with the sake. She could not tell if any of it landed on him.

She should have gone with Kakashi; Kakashi should have waited for her.

And in that instant, she knew that it fell on her to bring Obito back. To bring both Obito and Kakashi back home.

"Obito!" Rin shouted to her friend's fading form. "You wait! You wait for me Uchiha Obito! I'm going to find you! I'm going to find both of you!"

"Rin, there is something else." Obito said, translucent, his expression no longer his own. Her fingers slipped through when she reached out for him. "It—it's evil. You have to kill it okay?"

"Yes," She nodded frantically. "I understand."

Then, he was Obito again. His scars smoothed into a grin.

"Rin,_ thank you._"

The Seifuujin mourned for three days.

Instead of telling fortunes, the people of the-place-between-the-rocks arranged for mass prayers to soothe the Honorable Tosogare's passing. Tears flowed freely as liquor. Though most of them knew him as a wife and the sister of Lord Tegaki, the people spoke of Tosogare kindly in public and went about their days, snatching glimpses of the eight-petal lotus carved on the side of the mountain.

Then there were the visitors. Passerby who had hoped to have their palms read. Clients who had known Tosogare when he was a younger man. The spiritual, the superstitious and the forewarned. Even Iwa sent dignitaries as a sign of respect—a three-man formation led by a young woman with beautiful, coral eyes.

She and Jiraiya quietly moved their things outside the village when they felt her gaze pass over them one too many times.

The Honorable Tosogare had left his mark in shinobi legends but Tegaki's reputation precede him. Jiraiya explained that Lord Tegaki of Seifuujin was a known summoner of demons.

"He doesn't use the power idly. But, he can do it." Jiraiya elaborated after a loud belch. Which meant that his brother could also do it. Rin remembered that Jiraiya told her that the Seifuujin were responsible for Uzushio.

"What kind of demons?"

"The kind with tails." Jiraiya said grimly.

"Oh."

The hidden villages were notoriously secretive about tailed beasts. She knew that the last sighting of the Nine-Tails was in the Land of Fire, during the age of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama. But after that, nothing. It was as though the tailed beast had disappeared into thin air.

She wondered...

Jiraiya, half a bottle of sake in him, grunted that Tosogare had hardly been a saint but nonetheless burned incense in his memory so Rin too clasped her hands and prayed. She wished him a safe journey. She wished his family peace and prosperity.

It was time to leave.

He mentor acquired a bottle of hair dye and darkened his hair into common brown. They would act the part of father and daughter in their new identity. Rin didn't bother applying stripes and when birds chattered at her from tops of trees, hoping for handouts or something to thieve, she threw a kunai in the branches, scattering feathers among leaves.

Jiraiya laughed.

"And what did the birds do to you eh?"

Rin was not sulking. She felt that it was perfectly reasonable to ask that she be allowed to accompany her mentor on a mission to find their teammates.

But no, Jiraiya was playing dumb.

"To find who?" He asked gamely, picking wax from his ears.

Rin glared.

"You've been looking for Orochimaru. It wasn't sanctioned, was it?"

"Minato never said I couldn't look for him." Jiraiya shrugged. "Information is information."

Rin bit her tongue. Minato was the Fourth Hokage. He deserved respect. But she also needed to find her team.

"So we find one, we find the other." She said calmly. "We bring them both home."

She could see Jiraiya rolling his eyes, beseeching the Sage for strength.

"Rin, it's too dangerous. Now that we've taken care of this possession nonsense, I think it's time we had a talk about your future as an active shinobi."

"I know I'm not strong enough to become a sage." She admitted. "But I still want to try. I never want to be in another situation where I'm _useless_."

"Medical-nin keep their comrades alive." Jiraiya reminded her.

"I don't get to protect myself?"

"Your job is to protect _others_."

But Rin failed. Both in the field and in the hospital. She left Obito for dead. She put men back together just for them to be sent out into the front lines.

It wasn't protection. Not in the way she saw it.

"Then let me go with you to keep _you_ alive."

"No."

Jiraiya turned away from her.

"Why not?"

"Rin, it's not _safe_."

"We are ninja—we aren't supposed to be safe."

"Dammit Rin, the Hatake brat isn't a traitor!"

"What?"

She must have heard wrong. She had to have heard wrong.

Except Jiraiya looked absolutely miserable.

"Your friend didn't betray the village."

"Then why..."

Rin turned over the facts in her head. One teenaged jounin against Konoha's best trackers. Even Kakashi wasn't _that_ good. Someone must have told him to go; someone ordered Kakashi to leave the village. To play the part of a _traitor_. "The Hokage would _never_."

"Hatake's on a mission." Jiraiya said. "Deep-cover. If anything, our little detour proved that it's legit. It's one thing if I clobber the snake-bastard over the head. If Orochimaru saw you or if you blew Hatake's cover... Anyway. He's not a traitor." Jiraiya finished lamely.

"Then why..."

"Because Hatake sent a message. Said that there was a greater threat. Something's controlling Orochimaru. Now I've known that treacherous son of a bitch a long time. The thought of someone pulling _his_ strings? It scares the shit out of me."

"That's why you came here." Rin said dumbly. "Because Lord Tegaki and the Honorable Tosogare can control demons."

"That's a part of it." Jiraiya admitted. "But Rin, possessions are not a joke. It's a good thing that Uchiha brat was in love with you but love can turn into obsession. Obsession into hate. I should know. What is dead is dead. The living honor the dead but we do not call of them. We do not use them. And most importantly, we don't make them promises."

Rin's eyes stung. But she made Obito a promise.

"So we're all liars here." She said bitterly. "_Traitors_."

"I am sorry Rin."

"Ah, is this a bad time?"

The first person Rin recognized over the width of Jiraiya's shoulder was Kuroi and the sweep of his jet black hair. It rose half-heartedly from his skull like a crow's wing before falling messily into his face, bringing to mind a there-and-gone image of Kakashi after a hard tumble, sweat and dirt weighing down the usual shock of grey hair.

In Kuroi's arms, he cradled a tanto sheathed in black wood. The same he threatened to cut her with when Rin and his husband Sora held hands. A thin gold line traced the seams. She noticed that he would not take his eyes off of it.

His companion, a kunai-width taller, and she noticed with slight embarrassment, just as good looking, smiled with his amber eyes and held his hands up in a gesture of good will. Scars raked his work-roughened palms in a series of bone script**[1]** that flowed like poetry.

And between them, right arm wrapped tightly in a sling, was Yamagaze Souken, Sora's older brother.

It was the first time since their initial encounter that she'd gotten a good look at Souken. At first glance, she could hardly believe that he, Sora and Sousuke were related. Souken looked nothing like his brothers. Whereas the youngest and the eldest were tall, narrow at the waist with high-knees, Souken was barrel-chested and broad—she could easily see him in the fields working the land or selling wares in the market than wrapped in silk, playing the part of a gentle-born clansman.

Yet his sky-blue eyes were unmistakable. Both Kuroi and his amber-eyed companion planted their feet and allowed Souken to pass. She knew Kuroi had shinobi training. But all three had managed to slip their notice and gotten close. She found herself fingering the scalpels woven into her sleeve. Two against three was hardly fair. But with Jiraiya's warnings about the Seifuujin being demon summoners, she couldn't help but lean away as though they might suddenly sprout fur and tails.

"Yamagaze Souken." Souken greeted. "Pleased to make your acquaintance at last. This is Gin." He gestured injured arm towards the man with scarred hands. "And you've met Kuroi."

"How is your arm?" Rin found herself asking.

"Still here." Souken hummed.

"I am sorry for your loss." Jiraiya said stiffly.

Souken smiled and nodded in his direction.

"I as well. It was good of the Honorable Tosogare to help your friend."

His hand whipped out, bypassing Jiraiya's guard like it was nothing and snatching the charm Rin wore around her neck. He turned it over in his hand, politely ignoring sputtering noise.

"It's very well made." Souken said at last. "I hope it will serve you well."

She shivered.

Jiraiya's hand landed heavy on Souken's shoulder.

"Can we help you?"

Kuroi bristled.

"Oy, take your hands off of him."

"Easy," Souken said. "I've only come to deliver a message." And without taking his eyes off of Rin, Souken took an envelope out from inside his haori. It was stamped with the mark of leaf. "And I am here to collect payment."

Rin took the envelope gingerly as though it contained exploding tags instead of a message.

"Figures." Jiraiya scoffed and took out his wallet. "So what's the damage?"

"We cannot live on altruism alone." Souken answered simply. "But no." He grabbed Jiraiya's wrist and twisted it until it turned palm up, fingers digging hard into the leather of his wallet. Rin saw the space between his eyebrows crease as he struggled to pull free. But Yamagaze Souken was as strong as he looked. "The Honorable Tosogare may not have asked anything of you but he is dead. It is the Seifuujin who demands recompense for your carelessness."

"And why," Jiraiya said with a strained grin. "Does it feel like we're no longer talking about money?"

"Because you're smart Sannin Jiraiya-sama. How does the saying in Konoha go—" Souken released Jiraiya and reached behind for the hilt of Kuroi's tanto. And as the blade slid from its sheath, the sound putting Rin's teeth on edge, his haori fell open to reveal the naked flesh beneath and the band of cloth and metal wrapped tight around his left bicep. "An eye for an eye."

An Iwa forehead protector.

Jiraiya's voice was low.

"Who are you?"

"Are you frightened of an injured man?" Souken asked, cocking his head.

"I do not wish to fight."

"You misunderstand." Souken said with all the confidence of a man who knew the outcome either good or bad. "It's not a fight if it's murder. Kamizuru Kurotsuchi is paying us a visit and I think she would be interested to know why two Konoha shinobi are in the Land of Earth."

Kuroi's tanto lit up in an eerie fire. It was a chakra blade and in Souken's hands, it came to life, slicing through air. "Even we cannot stay here without Iwa's sanctions."

"It's peacetime."

The argument rang hollow.

"And so it is." Souken replied. "It would be a shame if someone saw you with Iwa-nin blood on your hands."

Gin and Kuroi knelt. They would not fight. They would play witnesses to Souken's suicide.

Jiraiya's lips pressed into a thin line. Rin could see him mentally calculate how long it would take Kurotsuchi to notice the sudden burst of earth and fire in the outskirts of the-place-between-the-rocks. Less if one of the three-man cell turned out to be a sensor. Less because they had been waiting.

They had been played.

"Wait," Rin interrupted in a sudden burst of inspiration. She rummaged through her bags hoping, praying that it was still there and legible.

She presented the three men with a crumpled exploding tag and both Gin and Kuroi pushed Souken back, one turning liquid below the waist, the other holding kunai between his fingers.

"Two years ago, I killed an Iwa chunin."

"A chunin isn't worth much." Souken said but his eyes were sharp and he was interested. He took the exploding tag from her and held it up against the sun.

"He belonged to the Kamizuru clan."

Jiraiya stared at her, dumbstruck.

She had gone through the bingo books once, two years ago. The boy hadn't been listed. He had been too young. Dead before he could make a name for himself. But maybe Souken knew him. Maybe Souken recognized him. Because under his forehead protector had been a tattoo that marked him Iwa's equivalent of Anbu.

"Well now." Souken said at last. "Kamizuru Kuroishi went missing during the Third Shinobi War. The Tsuchikage offered a kage's ransom**[2]** for information about his grandson. He was never found of course."

"Of course." Rin repeated, relaxing about an inch. "Tamonten forest, three kilometers west."

Before Souken could carelessly stick the exploding tag in his pockets or cast, Gin slapped the piece of paper between his palms and dampened it, letting the ink color his scars.

"We were never formerly introduced." Souken said. "May I have the honor of putting name to the slayer of Onoki's grandson?"

Rin shook her head. She knew what she had to say.

"Tell the Iwa it was Kakashi of the Sharingan."

Souken's smile was infectious and she couldn't help but smile back in kind.

"And may I have the pleasure of having your name as well?"

"It's Rin, Nohara Rin."

"Nohara-san," Souken tipped his head. "I'll be sure to keep an eye on you." And she saw that he meant it.

Souken slid the tanto back in its sheath. And as he left, from behind him, Kuroi and Gin both spun on their heels and bowed to her, low, much lower than it was warranted for a foreign shinobi, a shinobi of her rank and her gender.

"Thank you."

Jiraiya and Rin left immediately. Once they were far enough, once Jiraiya felt that they were far enough, a toad watching the roads for attempts at pursuit, Rin cut open the wax seal on her envelope and held the letter up to moonlight.

_Boy_. It said. _Come see_.

"Will you go?" Jiraiya asked, coaxing a fire into bloom.

"No."

She tossed the letter in the fire and watched the words burn away.

"My training is not complete yet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[1]** Bone script – see Oracle bones on Wikipedia
> 
> **[2]** The Third Kazekage also went missing around this time and I'm betting Suna offered some kind of a reward for news of their leader


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An interlude--basically what Kakashi was doing before the 10 year time skip.

“Cheer up Kakashi-san, we made it.”

“Finally.”

By the time he and Kisame arrived at the-place-between-the-rocks, it was a ghost town. Its main attraction had disappeared overnight and the few straggler drew back in unease at the sweep of red clouds, their eyes downcast and shadowed.

“If you’re looking for the Seifuujin, you are too late.” The barkeep said matter-of-fact when they stopped by the only building left standing for a chance to wet their lips. She bustled as she poured them a draft of cloudy liquid, at a discount for all new visitors, she said lying through her teeth, and a tincture of viscous, red syrup Kakashi suspected was actually poison.

Kisame happily knocked his drink back and Kakashi slid his glass towards his companion.

“We’re traveling pilgrims.” Kakashi explained. “We were _really_ hoping to see them.”

“Can’t help you.” The barkeep said, snatching the glasses back as soon as they were empty and packing them away on top of boxes which were on top of boxes, paying a laborer with a bag of clinking coins for his troubles. “They didn’t exactly leave a calling card, or summons.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and said thoughtfully, “They went east I think.”

A moment passed. “I think Lady Maya was talking about the Dark Continent.”

“Brave woman.” Kisame praised, bringing the tincture to his mouth. The man grimaced at the smell. His serrated teeth clamped closed. “What is this?”

“It’s a house specialty. Try.” The barkeep cooed.

Sighing, Kakashi pushed a thousand ryo across the scratched counter.

It was amazing how fast the piece of paper disappeared under the barkeep’s collar. The Puppet Brigade of Suna could have learned a thing or two from her sleight of hand.

“You could talk to Sora.” The barkeep offered as though the press of a thousand ryo on her skin had jogged her memories. “He’s a practitioner who stayed behind to take care of the gravesite. I’m sure he would help you if you asked and...” She made a ring with her thumb and her index finger, laying it flat against the top of her left breast. 

“Ahhh.” Kakashi said thoughtfully. “Thank you for your counsel.”

“Of course.” The barkeep said cheerily. The rest of the bar and board had cleared out during their conversation. Yet somehow, instead of feeling empty, the entire room seemed to shrink in on them. Kakashi hadn’t had a single drop of drink and a quick glance at Kisame showed that he too felt the charged air.

He eyed their host. Perhaps they had overstayed their welcome. They were in the Land of Earth. Close to the boarder to Fire and even closer to Iwa.

They had to watch themselves; Iwa was unkind to outsiders. Kakashi had to watch himself. He wasn’t sure he could hold himself back if he saw another forehead protector with the symbol for Iwa carved in the middle.

As they left, the barkeep curtsied and said, “Please, do come again.”

+++++11+++++

“A grave site.” Kakashi said flatly, looking up in the general direction of where they were supposed to go. It was hard to miss a giant flower carved into the side of a mountain. He always thought that the Hokage monument was hubris. But the Seifuujin might as well have painted a giant arrow on top of their temple and laid out a yellow brick road for their visitors to follow.

“At least we won’t get lost.” Kisame hummed.

“Stay alert.” A gut feeling told him to stay put. To turn around and never come back. The gut feeling was never wrong. So he ignored it because he had a job to do.

Halfway up the plateau, they caught up with a disgruntled young man hauling buckets of water across his narrow back. He looked comically dwarfed by the heavy yoke and Kisame, being a bleeding heart that he was, took it with one hand and slung it on top of his left shoulder, careful not to splash Samehada which was slumbering in its sheath.

“Maa,” Kakashi greeted cheerily. “Are you going to get your fortune told too?”

“Visitors?” The young man’s eyes glittered like ground glass. He was closer to Kakashi’s age than Kisame’s, _not_ that he had asked the missing-nin for his age, with delicate features and a pouting mouth that placed him far from home. But he had training. Kakashi could see when the young man came to the same conclusion. “The main family has moved on. You should head west.”

“Odd, we heard that Lady Maya was thinking of going to the Dark Continent.”

“Yachi.” The young man muttered under his breath.

Kakashi nodded in agreement.

“The lady was kind enough to direct us to, Sora was it?”

The young man curled his mouth into a sneer and denied, “He can’t help you.”

“Now, now.” Kakashi said calmly, weighing his chances with a kunai. He had been hoping for a bath at least before a confrontation. He popped open the buttons to his red-and-black cloak and flashed his wallet, fat from kicking bandits up and down Taki territory. “We have money.”

“Err, Kakashi-san... that is.”

“Whoops.” Kakashi said, not missing a beat.

He had pulled out his battered copy of Icha Icha Paradise by accident. The young man had gone crimson at the there-and-gone glimpse of the cover art. A glaring weakness in his training if he was being honest.

Kakashi held up his actual wallet and the young man rocked back on his feet, tempted by easy, easy money.

Easy.

He looked at them up and down. As though he had a chance in taking them both. Inwardly, Kakashi smiled.

To Kisame, the young man ordered, “Do not spill a drop of that water.”

“Scout’s honor.” Kisame agreed,

“And you are?”

“Kyou.” Kyou said shortly. No last name given. He didn’t ask for Kakashi’s name or Kisame’s. Though he had a drop of divination in him, he wouldn’t have needed to.

“Aa. Pleased to meet you.”

They walked up the mountain in silence, punctuated by the rustling wind and the sense of foreboding that snapped tighter and tighter around their ribs. After what seemed like ten thousand steps, they set foot on the plateau where an entire side of a mountain had been carved to resemble an opening lotus.

“Over here.” Kyou jerked his head, directing Kisame to a small well that was much diminished. It was not an ideal place to build a home. It would be difficult to carry _anything_ up the steps in winter. But Kyou did not seem to mind the task as he bullied Kisame into emptying the buckets in order.

After exchanging discreet glances with his partner, Kakashi slipped off to the side. It was easy enough to walk past the open doors.

Despite the temple’s size, there was no one in attendance. He wandered across the empty courtyard, in front of great lion dog statutes that bore his fangs at him, the sunlit hallways and a koi pond with red-and-black fish the length of his arm.

Kakashi had been to the Uchiha compound. He had his own house to compare it with in his head. The main hall stuck out to him. Centered but off to the side, at an angle where it would be illuminated every solstice. Inside, candle wax lined all four walls, dripping down panels of dark wood like honey off a hive. The flames closest to the door threatened to blow out at his passing and traced the red and white clouds with movement, rippling across his cloak.

“Sora I take it, I’ve been looking for you.”

A man stood in the middle of the hall which was meant to house an entire clan, a family, a congregation or even a cult. Kakashi hummed thoughtfully even as his hair rose on end, stomach folding itself in half.

It was a closed space. There was only one entrance. Light barely penetrated the lotus-patterned slats of the ceiling. The perfect place for a murder, he thought.

Sora raised an eyebrow and asked, “Do I know you shinobi-san?”

The onmyouji looked like a Bunraku doll**[1]**. He wore layers of furisode meant for a woman, each more outlandish than the last. The topmost layer was of a deep, violet silk, almost black, spangled with silver-pointed stars.

Kakashi saw that his eyes, slanted in the candlelight, were an uncanny blue. The kind of blue he might find in an autumn sky, fathomless and deep. Blue eyes were rare in Konoha. Minato had been an exception. But Minato’s eyes were flawed, dark in places, pale near the cornea. His eyes did not have the arresting effect of someone who’d been touched by a spirit. Someone who’d laid their soul bare on purpose to let the power in.

When he was young, Sakumo—his father—took him to a priestess for blessings. The woman had read fortune off the callouses in his palms and promised him a destiny, tying his boy-thin wrists with a red cord and forcing him to drink wine she had spat in three times.

The woman probably had been a fraud.

So Kakashi knew things. He had been taught many things; he learned things that they did not teach at the Academy, before and after his father passed. When he was trying to make sense of funeral arrangements with no family plot to bury a body, only a memorial tablet and urns that held dusty remains of ancestors and a mother he didn’t remember. At Shisui’s feet when he had all but begged the young Uchiha to help him set things right. When Kisame told him that Kiri followed the old ways, the ways before the idea of heaven and Pure Land permeated the minds of believers.

“By that definition,” He had said. “All of us will be worm food in the next life.”

And Kisame had replied cheerfully, “It would be a simpler life.”

“You have something I need.” Kakashi told Sora.

The practitioners of the Seifuujin Clan had a reputation. They could talk to ghosts, read stars and suborn demons to their whims. If half the fantastic things he had heard about them were true, he should have walked the other way, to Kumo and their tame, tailed beasts when Orochimaru first broached the subject.

“I’m afraid I cannot help you.” Sora demurred. “I am simply a custodian, tasked with the duty of caring for this place.”

“If it’s money you want.”

A pause.

“I don’t do that anymore.” Sora’s voice curdled into one of resentment and Kakashi couldn’t figure out _why_.

His heart began to race.

“Your kind told fortunes for the biggest wallets in the past. What is one more?”

“One more death for Konoha?” Sora suggested flatly. “After all, the hidden villages are among our best customers.”

“I’m not from Konoha.”

“Aren’t you?” Sora turned away in dismissal. “People do strange things in desperate situations.”

“That’s right.” The tips of his fingers whitened and peeled back as he pulled chakra into his arm. He didn’t need the Sharingan to kill a civilian. “And if you won’t give me an answer, I take it from you.”

Sora asked, “If I won’t?”

On cue, Kyou flew through the wall. Kakashi looked over his shoulders as the dust settled, the hulking figure of Kisame peering timidly through the new doorway, looking worried that he had broken something.

“Shall we?” He prompted when his partner took too long to go around to open the actual doors.

“This is why we can’t have nice things.” Kisame said depreciatingly.

“We’ll leave extra at the next temple.” Kakashi soothed.

Three shinobi stood from the ceiling, watching the exchange. The one at the center had blue eyes, clear and deep like Sora’s. A cousin maybe. The two looked nothing alike. And as though he had read his thoughts, Souken smiled.

The shinobi to his left dropped at once, landing on top of Samehada which was still in its sheath. Though very unhappy about fighting in a holy place, Kisame was a good partner. He backed Kakashi’s play, pulling back the cloth bindings to reveal his sentient sword.

Gin dissolved into pale foam as Samehada swung through his torso.

“Oh shit.” The man said as he reappeared a few feet away. “That’s Samehada—He’s one of the _Seven_.”

“Hozuki.” Kisame growled, recognizing the bloodline technique.

“We’re in the presence of a legend.” The third shinobi, Kuroi, commented.

Kakashi swallowed and fought to keep his hands from the borrowed eye.

How did he know their names?

He had never met them before; he had never seen their faces drawn inside a bingo book. He wracked his brain for an answer and quipped, “You know, it’s awfully rude not to introduce yourselves.”

“Bro, you just said you were going to take the information from us.” Hozuki Gin pointed out.

“Just him.” Kakashi jerked a thumb in Sora’s direction who said, “Be careful with the floor, I just finished mopping.”

“Quit your bellyaching bro. Kyou, you dead or what?”

“Tch.” Kyou got to his feet, nose broken but none worse for wear. Picking the splinters from his forehead, he declared, “The big one is mine.”

“Tag.” Hozuki agreed. His left hand folded from dragon to dog. “Suiton: Mizudeppo!”

Kakashi ducked under a barrage of water and watched the chakra dissipate harmlessly off the stone walls instead of punching through. A barrier, he realized grimly. A quick glance at Sora showed the man with his hands clasped in concentration, index fingers and thumbs forming a diamond in front of his chest.

“Eyes on target kid.”

Hozuki swiped at his throat, missed, but the chakra-infused kunai ripped through his face mask. Kakashi tore the shredded fabric from his chin and threw it on the ground, just as the man tapped his index fingers together and shouted, “Suiton: Teppodama!”

“Kisame.” Kakashi grunted, rolling to a stop. It would be a waste of chakra to block or parry Hozuki’s attacks. “Ideas?”

Kisame put Kyou down a second time and stomped him flat to keep him in place.

“He’s vulnerable to raiton.”

Hozuki Gin didn’t become a vassal of the Seifuujin clan without a few tricks up his sleeve. Kakashi’s hands flowed from ox-rabbit-monkey. He growled, “Chidori—“

The man’s yellow eyes lit up in glee.

“Ranton—!”

Kakashi pulled back his forehead protector.

The commas in his eye whirled. Their palms connected in the reversed claws of boar and hinged on the fingers to form a triangle. Hozuki stared at him, astonished. Kakashi sneered, “_Raiunkuha_.”

Storm chakra surged between them. The arcs of pale lightning made it impossible for Hozuki to use the hydrification technique. But for Kakashi, long used to pulling lightning chakra like sleeves, it barely tickled. And the black thunderclouds gave him the cover to draw a plain dagger from his boot, intended for Hozuki’s head.

The dagger shattered against chakra-edged steel. The sound resonated and at once, the candles were put out as though doused in rain. The room plunged into darkness and Kakashi crouched low, arms in front of him at a defensive stance. The Iwa-nin were still there, out of reach. He could smell them and he could hear them.

He thought he could hear them.

Because from the shadows, a figure emerged, footsteps as light as autumn leaves. His ears picked up the sound of flint on steel. The man swore when the candles did not catch flame.

Kakashi found himself taking a step forward, fingers itching to take the fire striker and the piece of flint.

“Come on dad.” _Kakashi complained_. “Like this!”

_Sakumo looked fondly down at his son and ruffled his hair. He should have been worried that his precocious three-year-old was literally playing with fire but that’s what the buckets of sand was for and it wasn’t like he could do more damage to the scorched floor panels._

“Good job Kakashi, you’ve saved dinner.”

“Dad,” _Kakashi whined, grabbing hold of Sakumo’s hand. _“I showed you last time. Did you forget?”

“Oh I remember,” _Sakumo assured him._ “It’s just hard for me sometimes to strike a match.”

“Are you hurt?” _Kakashi asked anxiously._

“No.” _Sakumo said thoughtfully._ “You know how I can use lightning chakra?”

“For the chakra blade!” Kakashi answered, no volume control at three-years-old.

“Yes.” _Sakumo praised._ “Lightning chakra wears on you after a while. I can’t feel a thing with my fingertips.”

“No?” _Kakashi asked, eyes wide._ “Not even needles?” _Because needles were his biggest fear as a three-year-old._

“Not even needles.” _Sakumo replied._

In the present, Kakashi shuddered as he found himself halfway between where he had been and where he had seen his father.

Despite the fact that Obito sucked _balls_ at illusionary techniques, Minato had drilled his team with defensive tactics because Obito was Uchiha. Uchiha were illusionists. He remembered taking turns being placed under a trance. Rin had been the best out of the three of them.

He blinked, his mouth dry.

What was the first rule of being caught in an illusion?—the first rule was to acknowledge that he was in an illusion.

He calmed down.

Out of the corner of his left eye, a watery vision of Obito asked him, “_And the second_?”

“Kai.”

Nothing happened. The darkness did not dispel itself. He remained caught in the Seifuujin’s thrall.

He tugged at his chakra coils. Nothing.

It was Kisame who broke first.

He dropped heavy on his knees and slammed his forehead against the floor.

“I yield.”

Samehada was laid at his fingertips, shivering its scales lightly.

“Ah, that was pretty quick.” Sora said.

Kakashi was startled to find the man standing beside him, striking a match to light a cigarette tucked in the corner of his mouth. The man smiled winningly. “And you shinobi-san?”

Sweat drenched his spine. His father was gone. Obito was gone.

“What did you do?”

After the Honorable Tosogare’s death, the Seifuujin moved on from the-place-between-the-rocks. Lord Tegaki could not stay in a place where his beloved died, where his sister-wife died, where his brother died. They left Yamagaze Sora and his attendants as caretakers in perpetuity, an exile, in a place that barely warranted a name.

And Kakashi knew this as though someone had told him, feeding the knowledge word by word into his ears.

It had been too easy to get in. The temple was never meant to keep things out. It was designed to keep things in.

“Careful,” Souken warned as he swaggered up to them, an empty sleeve swinging by his side. Close up, his eyes were even more disturbing. Unlike Sora, Souken was supposed to be _shinobi_.

“Souken-sama.” Kuroi said irritably, plucking the tanto from his hand. “Please don’t do that again.”

Souken laughed.

“Sorry, my body just moved.”

“Yeah I bet it did.” Kuroi muttered under his breath.

“I appreciate your concern.” Souken said gently.

Rebuked, Kuroi lowered his head.

“_Hai_, Souken-sama.”

Kakashi hitched his breath. The lack of his face mask meant that he could smell everything. Souken smelled like blood and it made him small, young—_only fourteen_. It made him afraid.

Souken smelled like death.

Kisame was still on the ground, kissing the floor in supplication. Kakashi couldn’t blame him. He didn’t know what to do.

“Who are you?”

But his question went ignored. Hozuki leaned over him, amber eyes staring into his own.

“Oy, oy Souken, he doesn’t look like an Uchiha. How come he has that swirly eye?”

“He probably stole it.” Kuroi disparaged. “Does it matter?”

“You dare!” Kakashi hissed, stopped when a sword-point kissed his throat.

“Yes.” Souken said evenly. “Because we can.”

“Kakashi-san.” Kisame pleaded. “Please don’t.”

Souken looked sideways, his eyes off to the side and unfocused, to where Obito had been standing.

“I wonder.” He said. “The Honorable Tosogare was many things. Predictable... was not one of them.”

“Aah,” Sora made a small noise of agreement as he too looked to the space between them.

And there was, _must have been_, something there, something intangible, out of grasp and out of reach. Like smoke but not the trail of ashes that lit Sora’s cigarette. A there-and-gone sensation of being caught in a paralytic dream.

Kakashi was cold. Sora did not look so insane anymore. The layers of silk, with their long sleeves and womanly patterns, was like an armor. Kakashi was shinobi; he was supposed to look beneath the underneath.

“It’s not sporting of you to impose yourself like this Obito-kun.”

Kakashi froze.

“What did you say?”

Sora looked amused. He placed a hand on Kakashi’s chest. Where Obito’s forehead protector had been sewn inside his shirt.

The man asked, “Shall I tell you about the boy who wore that hai-tai?”

Only Kuroi kept him from lunging at Sora.

“There is nothing you can tell me about him.” Kakashi said fiercely. “He’s dead.” He turned to the Iwa-nin. “You killed him.”

“Then I will show you.”

Sora’s eyes were the color of an autumn sky, fathomless and deep—inhuman. They were the kind of color that left bruises when worn and stains when touched. Through Sora’s eyes, Kakashi saw what his eyes could not alone. What Obito’s sharingan could not perceive by itself.

Ghosts, ghosts who were ghosts even to other ghosts, stood roped around the main hall.

And Obito was its center, squeezed between him and Sora, Kuroi’s tanto going through the hollow point of his throat, arms outstretched as though he could keep the Iwa at bay. He was whole. Not the broken thing he saw every time he returned to Orochimaru’s lair. Obito was thirteen. He would always be thirteen. And Kakashi realized with a start, when he straightened himself, he was taller. Not towering, but taller.

Obito would always be the boy who told him that his father was a hero, the boy who saved his life and told him under no circumstances, what was expected of him as a teammate.

Kakashi’s voice cracked.

“_Obito?_”

Obito turned, surprised.

“Eh... Kakashi?”

“Obito!”

“Kakashi.”

The repetition could have gone on forever but Obito broke the tie by shouting, “What the hell _Baka_-kakashi!”

Dumbfounded, Kakashi could only say, “You’re... here.”

“Of course I’m here!” Obito exploded. “I’m always here! You don’t listen! You never listen! No one ever listens!”

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Kakashi said.

“_You’re_ not supposed to be here!” Obito parroted. “You’re so _stupid_!”

“Shut up dead-last.” Kakashi countered automatically, unfairly maligned, and asked in a more timid voice, “...You can see me?”

“OF COURSE I CAN SEE YOU!”

Kakashi had forgotten how loud Obito could be.

“What are you even doing here? There are ghosts here. It’s really creepy! Go home Kakashi please? You’re supposed to be in Konoha. You’re supposed to be with _Rin_.”

“I can’t.” Kakashi winced. “I left the village without permission. I’m a traitor—Rin. Minato. Sensei. This... This is the only way. He said...”

Obito looked crushed.

“_Sensei is wrong._”

Obito’s ghost flickered at the edges and suddenly, Kakashi was struck with the sense of fear that if he let him, if he let his friend go, he may never see him again. Kakashi reached out but his fingers went aimlessly through Obito’s arms, like he was trying to grasp snowflakes with bare hands. Obito was dead. There was no turning back the lost time.

Quietly, Kakashi bent his knees and pressed his palms against the wood grain. 

“I yield.”

“Kakashi. What the hell. Get up!”

Kakashi shook his head as Obito passed through him.

“No, no.” Because no matter what Obito thought, Kakashi wasn’t an idiot. He had a plan. He bowed his head towards the onmyouji. “Please, help me.”

Sora blew out a breath. “He’s a taishiki. Do you even know what that is?”

Kakashi did not. He was not about to admit that.

“He’s my friend.”

In the background, Kisame choked. He thought that Obito looked slightly pleased. It didn’t stop the boy ghost from plunging his hands, up to his elbows, into his back and sending chills up his spine.

“Stop it alright?” Kakashi snapped. “For once in your life, accept that you lost. I made a promise, I intend to keep it.”

“I made a promise too!” Obito roared, refusing to give way. “I’m supposed to see the future with you! I can’t see the future with you if you’re **dead!**”

“But you are!” Kakashi allowed himself a small smile when Obito fell quiet. “And that’s on me. It’s my fault.”

Obito shook his head.

“You couldn’t have known. You wouldn’t. It wasn’t your fault.”

“We should have gone back for you.” Kakashi confessed. “Some teammates we are. We left you there and you.”

“I died.” Obito finished softly.

“I did the math. Three months... with Orochimaru.”

Obito looked stricken. He turned his gaze to Sora, to Souken and their attendants. Even Kyou who had gotten to his feet and stood wiping his bruised mouth.

Sora held a finger to his lips. Kakashi did not understand. He continued, “I keep thinking, what would Obito—what would you do? What would you have done? You would have never left me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” Kakashi said firmly. “Because I left you and you were right. Those who break the rules are trash. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.”

“Well said.”

The Honorable Tosogare was beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. He smiled, eyes creased into crow’s feet at the corners. Sora and the others immediately bowed in deference to the former head of the Seifuujin clan. “It is good to see you again Uchiha-san.”

Obito seemed startled at being addressed directly. It put Kakashi on edge. Obito had never been gifted with caution, had never known a confrontation he could walk away from. The Honorable Tosogare, the ghost of him, with his dark honey eyes and ivory skin, hair that flowed like a river and hakama of violet silk trimmed with silver stars, was dangerous.

Kakashi had seen his portrait once. The portrait had been of a sickly woman. In death, the Honorable Tosogare regained his youth and vitality. This was what the man could have been.

“It’s alright.” The Honorable Tosogare assured him. “No harm will come to you in this hall.”

Kakashi’s teeth cut his face like a grin.

“And outside?”

The Onmyouji made a pleased sort of noise, a light hum at the back of his throat. His hands caressed Kakashi’s face and it felt like butterflies tracking across his brow.

“I’m sorry.” Obito blurted out. When all eyes turned to him, he explained. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were sick.”

“I was sick.” The Honorable Tosogare agreed, releasing Kakashi. “It’s alright. It does not hurt anymore.”

“They burned your body.” Obito swallowed. The Uchiha also burned their dead.

“Yes.”

Obito bit his lips.

“I won’t leave them.”

The Honorable Tosogare laughed.

“Have I asked you to do different?”

“Can you bring him back?” Kakashi interrupted.

Kyou hissed. Kuroi growled, “Blaspheme.”

But neither Sora nor Souken seemed affected by Kakashi’s demand. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said Sora looked amused.

“What a curious question.” The Honorable Tosogare commented. “During the First Shinobi War, Senju Tobirama created a technique that threatened to destroy the very concept of your afterlife. All for the glory of Konoha. No child, what is dead is dead. I cannot bring the dead back to life.”

Hozuki made a sign to ward off evil.

“The world needs people like him.”

“Kakashi—“ Obito hissed. “Shut up.”

The onmyouji turned to Sora and his men.

“Souken,” he said, singling out whom Kakashi now knew to be Sora’s twin brother. “You are unwell.”

“I am merely awed by your presence Tosogare-sama.”

“Flatterer.” Souken pressed his cheeks against the Honorable Tosogare’s palms, disappointed when the hand eventually came to a rest over his empty sleeve.

“It was a small price to pay.” Souken said gently.

Beside him, without raising his head, Sora asked, “And my petition Honorable Tosogare-sama?”

It gave the Honorable Tosogare a pause. After a moment he said, “Go find your brother Sora. Tell Tegaki I’ve allowed it.”

Sora shivered.

The Honorable Tosogare’s eyes swept over Kakashi and Obito and what he saw, he must have been satisfied. He said, “Good luck Uchiha-san, Hatake-san.”

The Honorable Tosogare disappeared. The other ghosts disappeared. And Obito disappeared.

“Wait.” He tried to meet Sora’s eyes once more. Certain that if he did, he could see the ghosts again. Sora stared back at him baldly but the ghosts did not return. He was rewarded with a face full of smoke. “Teach me how to see him.”

Sora chewed around the cigarette butt.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“This isn’t something that can be taught.”

“I have the sharingan.” Kakashi countered. “And Souken can see.”

Because he had been watching the one-armed man. The way he talked and the way he moved. All of the Iwa shinobi saw to an extent, touched by a power beyond reckoning. But Souken with his clear blue eyes _saw_.

“I said no.”

“But—“ Kakashi protested.

“It’s because I died.” As soon as Souken opened his mouth, it was as though all movement stopped. “A temporary death, but it was enough. The dead follow a different set of rules. They are not bound by morals or laws or physics or chakra. And some days, I feel reckless.” He clutched at his empty sleeve. “There are times I have to stop myself from doing things my body won’t survive. Reckless.” Souken repeated.

His men stirred uneasily. 

“So no, you don’t want to do that Hatake.”

“Can you stop death?”

“You deaf bro?” Hozuki was semi-liquid once more. “Stop asking the same question over and over.”

“But he did it. He lived.” He said, jerking his head towards Souken. “And we all know that the onmyouji can accomplish the impossible.”

“Go home Hatake.” Sora said, smoke curling around his chin. “Ask your Kage what the shinobi can do that the onmyouji will not. Orochimaru can find his answers somewhere else.”

The butt of his cigarette disintegrated into cinders. And with it, the candles were relit all around the hall. Kakashi knew when he had been beaten. He was a veteran of the Third Shinobi War. Kisame was one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. He did not think he could win.

“Sorry we ruined the floor.” He muttered.

Sora tilted his head.

“It’s been a pleasure. Please, do come again.”

+++++11+++++

Outside, it was still daylight.

It felt like they had been inside for hours.

Kyou did not hold grudges for the cracked ribs and the broken nose. He tossed them provisions and kicked them out, closing the heavy gates by himself.

Kakashi looked at Kisame.

He didn’t trust Kisame but the man was the closest thing he had to a friend within Akatsuki. Kisame had doubts about Orochimaru’s plan.

Kisame knew about Obito.

“We don’t need to talk about this do we?”

They were partners. He trusted Kisame; he trusted Kisame’s belief in the natural order.

It was enough.

Kisame took a deep breath.

“No we don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Bunraku doll - form of traditional Japanese puppet theater. 
> 
> Chapter 10 & 11 have been switched to accommodate the concept of time.


	11. Chapter 11

Rin rolled over in bed.

Outside, the sky was inky blue. Just beginning to curl yellow at the edges. She had woken to a birdsong. A little warbler announcing its plans to fly south for the coming winter. She couldn't wait for the first frost. When no birds sang in the morning and trees were empty, branched black against heavy clouds. Drowsy, she curled against the warm body beside her, close enough to taste the salt off his skin.

She thought, exploding tags were overkill. But maybe it didn't have to explode. There were other elemental chakra she could brush onto the thin paper strip. What if it let off a cloud of dust? A stream of water. Or electricity. Like chidori.

Sleep fled her mind.

She sat up to her companion's disgruntled moan. Her bedmate stretched and scratched at his family jewels. _Charming_—she grimaced as she slipped out of bed, gathering articles of clothing strewn across the room. But he had been very good looking in bar light. She tugged her leggings on and reconsidered. With liberal application of alcohol perhaps.

The important thing was that he was the mayor's son and had money to spend whereas she wanted to save up for a new whetting stone. A fair trade all things considered. Not everyone could afford the price of companionship. Tying her hair into a loose ponytail, she closed the door behind her with a silent click.

Time, she thought without irony, passed by very quickly. She knew she was lucky. She was alive, whole, all four limbs, two eyes, and hair. Many died during the Third Shinobi War. More in the fallout. Half her year mates were gone, disfigured or retired. Obito was dead. Kakashi defected. Anko alone. Ibiki tortured.

The ninja she knew counted their age through scars, knowledge, lore, technique and a body count. Rin counted hers through a series of letters, messages she never answered nor written back. There were only a handful of ways to reliably send a message. None that were available to her short of delivering it herself in person. But that would have defeated the purpose of her pilgrimage. She could not prevent her messages from being intercepted; she would not send them.

It was a hard life. It was a lonely life. Her life was not of material things. Her mentor was not a material man. As his student, she followed his teachings. Trusting that it would keep her alive.

But she kept things. Like the talisman around her neck. Or the forehead protector for Konoha stitched under her shirt. She had her scalpels and needles. She had the name of the Kamizuru chunin she slew when she was thirteen.

She knew that Kakashi was alive. She even knew what he wasn't a traitor and that he lied to her and left her.

The whispers of a pale-haired death underground—she didn't know how much of it was true. What was real and what was not and which part she had a hand in setting loose on an unsuspecting gossipmonger. Sometimes she wondered if the mystique that made up the missing-nin Hatake Kakashi was more hers than his.

He sent messages as well. Sometimes. Damn him. A flea-bitten mutt that yawned wide and had to be bribed with meat even though all the notes ever said was tell her to pack up and go home. But she couldn't go home. She didn't dare. Rin made a promise to both of them. She would do whatever it took to bring them both home.

It was early enough in the morning that the public baths were open and left unmolested by a certain, aging pervert with a weakness for purple prose. There were a few day laborers passed out in a loose ring. Empty sake bottles underfoot and a plate of fish jerky feeding a family of flies. But the women at the bathhouse were already hard at work, tubs emptied and refilled with newly drawn water.

Hot water and no sages hoping for a glimpse of a bare ankle or a breast. It was almost too perfect.

Rin stuffed her belongings in a floating basket and held herself underwater. She emerged moments later, face pulled tight and her skin scalded a glorious pink.

"I don't like birds." She said out loud.

A wood dove chirped at her sweetly, as out of place as _Jiraiya_ at a monastery. But it carried the unmistakable symbol of onmyodo around its neck. Rin hadn't run into one of those in a while. Hadn't been able to ever since Jiraiya caught whiff of protection that Obito placed on her when he died and a price was paid to make sure that it would not hurt her.

She would never be the one to spit in the face of protection. But she knew deep in her bones, past the lessons about chakra and coils and history and legends, Obito would not have hurt her. It was money wasted. A life wasted. Every practitioner had shunned their footsteps since.

The Seifuujin had not fared well since Tosogare's death. Like the wandering monks of old, they had moved on from the-place-between-the-rocks and scattered in the wind. By choice or something else, she did not know. The Honorable Tosogare's dance had made her a marked woman. She did not know what it meant. There was no one she could talk to that would tell her what it meant. Not even Jiraiya who had studied onmyodo extensively.

The bird waited until she got out of her well-deserved bath and led her to a stock room built into the side of the bathhouse. A closet refitted into a shrine. A stone Buddha sat at the center, surrounded by candles that were barely cool. She was surprised to see a familiar figure and a lit cigarette clenched between a grin.

"It's good to see you again Nohara-san."

Yamagaze Sora no longer wore the extravagant robes that befitted his station. He was in a plain, navy yukata with a soft, wave pattern trimming the hems. He was older now, his back bowed and face piled with shadows.

"You are alone." She observed. She shouldn't have bothered. It was hardly worth mentioning. The room was small. Just enough for them to stand comfortably face-to-face. She nearly stubbed her toes against an offering table when she tried to step forward. They were at a stalemate.

"You know better than most that we are never truly alone."

He had a scar from his lip to jaw. It was scabbed over and new. Perhaps a failed attempt at an assassination. Someone who had gotten close enough despite Kuroi's protection.

Already, Rin was playing with the scalpels in her sleeves. Sora wasn't a fighter and the town wasn't a place where someone like him could reach unmolested. They straddled the border between Water Country and Lightning country. It was a boomtown, preying on travelers who were in desperate need of supplies. There were no gods here. The local priest was a drunk and a letch who abandoned his post as soon as he found out Jiraiya was in town.

"Where are your men?"

"Gone." Sora replied as an afterthought. "They were needed elsewhere."

"Your brothers?"

She remembered Yamagaze Souken, the middle brother, the Anbu operative willing to trade a name for a running start.

The shadows in Sora's face deepened.

"Souken passed three years ago."

"My condolences." She said automatically because it was the polite thing to do. One did not make ready enemies with the onmyouji if they wanted to have a long life.

"Don't be." Sora replied. "It was a good death for him. A worthier death. One should be so lucky." She backed away as he leaned close, smoke shifting in his wake. She thought. It was early. She was seeing things. She thought. She thought that the smoke might have been coming from him instead.

"Lucky." She echoed. Yamagaze Souken had been in the prime of his life when they first met. But that was nearly ten years ago. She would have to write to her contacts in Iwa if they had heard anything. Ninja from Iwa tended to run as hardy as the rocks they were named for. Yamagaze Souken would not have gone down easy. "Why are you here?"

Sora made a noise of concern.

"You know, it's quite strange. I'm not quite sure myself. I could be anywhere else. In Iwa I suppose, it was where I was born. Or in Kumo as my brother's vassal. Yet I find myself here, with you."

Hair rose on the back of her neck. It was dark inside the little shrine. Predawn light was slow to seep through the cracks in the wall. The black wicks were dim. She could barely make out the severe face of the stone Buddha and the line of candles. The offering table and the rattle of many plates heaped on its bowed legs. Yamagaze Sora and his white teeth, the cherry on his cigarette outlining the bottom half of his face.

But his eyes, they were extraordinary. They glittered like fistfuls of jade and turquoise. In the darkness, they took on a life of their own.

Rin swallowed the lump in her throat and gestured towards the candles.

"May I?"

"You may." Sora said agreeably.

She didn't remember taking her scalpels out but she hastily stuffed them back up her sleeves. A matchbox had been left at the foot of the stone Buddha and she took it. And as she lit the candles one by one, Sora continued.

"Family is messy business Nohara-san. I never wanted this for myself, do you understand?"

"By this, I assume you mean your gift for divination."

Sora laughed.

"A gift, yes. I suppose you could call it that."

"You said that the women inherited the power."

As could the men. But the power wore on men. Like it wore on Tosogare.

"Yes." Sora sounded pleased that he didn't have to explain. "My brother Sousuke was his father's only true heir. No chance to produce a girl I'm afraid. The power nonetheless passes on from the mother to her children. So our mother had me and Souken and Sousuke was married off to a girl from a good family, hoping to produce a girl. We're always praying for a girl."

"But you inherited the power."

"Yes." Sora drew on his cigarette at the unasked question. "Me and Souken are twins. Born ten minutes apart. I failed the genin corps. I'm afraid I never had the knack for it. I was always better at getting into trouble than out. But Souken took to the army life like a duck to water. I drowned my brother as a chunin gift."

Rin could not help the small gasp that escaped her lips. Sora stared at her knowingly, smoke encircling his neck like a pet viper. "Kuroi never forgave me for it. I kept Souken's soul bound to his body for ten minutes before I felt the power find me. Death is better. I could not let Souken become what Sousuke had been before he was married off. There are other ways of course. Darker ways." And Rin remembered that those who held power had to be chaste. They were virgins.

"But I am responsible for my own. I wanted to take control of our destiny and remind our mother that we were more than vessels for the way. There was a time when the old religion ruled. When people respected _wu zhong liuxing zhi qi_**[1]** and flocked to us for more than simple readings. The Honorable Tosogare could raise demons, did you know?"

Sora knelt in front of the offering table, letting his fingers walk past the apples with their tops cut off, the yellow pears and strips of dried fish. He hovered over a plate of wrinkled dates and the white mooncakes, the cuts of salted pork and the bowl of uncooked rice like she had imagined an ancestral spirit might have, back when she was young and saw her parents more and her great-grandmother was disagreeable less. Back when the old woman filled her head with fantastic monsters, ghosts in the water, things that lived inside riverbeds and breathed silt. Religion older than the words 'Pure Land' and the concept of an honorable death.

He bit into an apple. An ugly thing. A stunted thing, now that she looked at it, with bruised skin. Sora the blasphemer, Sora the peacock, took another bite and let the juice dribble down his chin and dot his throat like stars. "That time is gone now." He said and she winced at the wrongness of the scene. She tightened her grip around her talisman and his eyes did not miss her movement. "I have been remiss in my duties." He said solemnly, lips shiny. "I am here to make amends."

She noticed that his cigarette had been put out against a yellow pear, leaving a round scorch mark, black and obvious against the skin.

Sora stood up and mopped his chest with wave-patterned sleeves. "I wanted to tell you about your friend. He came to me years ago, not long after you and your mentor were chased into the grass. When Souken brought me the name of a slain child and went forth to discover his remains in the earth."

"You don't mean..."

"No." And the answer was immediate. _Curt_. "Not that one." One would have to be very foolish indeed to invite a taishiki unbound."

"His name is Uchiha Obito." She said, voice flat. "He would never hurt me."

"Not you perhaps. But others? Uchiha Obito may have loved you but he is dead." Rin flinched. "Uchiha Obito may have loved you but he is no longer of the living. That means that the same rules do not apply to him. There will be no chakra exhaustion to prove a saving grace. No knives nor blade nor technique can slay him. He is a spirit now. They are not hindered by physical limitations. Yet they love still and anger and hate."

Sora took another bite of the apple. "The taishiki—your friend," Sora amended when he saw that Rin was about to interrupt again. "Wasn't dangerous because he was an Uchiha or because he was your friend. He was dangerous simply for being himself. I doubt even the Honorable Tosogare knew until the end. But I glimpsed it, he was a soul descended from an age when the name of the Sage of the Six Paths was new. Had he lived, you would not be standing where you are now."

She blinked. Sora let out a soft chuckle. "My apologies. I have lost you. The mind wanders. Old age you know."

At the corner of her eyes, she saw a candle, far left of the Buddha, flicker once and die.

"But it was the other one." Sora said. "The one who slew Kamizuru Kuroishi."

"Kakashi came to you?" She was surprised. And then was ashamed at her surprise. She did not know much about Kakashi after all. Kakashi had been as much a stranger as Obito had been in the end. Filled with rituals and clan secrets that a civilian could only dare to try and understand.

"Is that so strange?" He closed his teeth over the apple core. It was morning. She could tell that the sun was up and light was finally slanting through the wooden roof. And yet, Sora remained shrouded in a cloud of smoke much thicker than it should have been. "The Hatake Clan followed the old ways once. I believe your friend is something of an atheist though I may be mistaken. But he did not seek spiritual counseling from me."

"What did he want?"

"Immortality."

_Orochimaru_, Rin thought. It had to be.

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing." His chewing was obnoxiously loud. She could barely make out the words. "One life is long enough. And Hatake Kakashi has promised to bear witness to a future."

Rin held her breath. She didn't know if Sora knew the significance of the words. If he knew for certain that they had been spoken between friends a long time ago.

She calmed herself.

"And what did you want to tell me?"

Sora sighed. Another candle was put out. A scalpel slid down into the center of her palms. Thrown, she was sure she could strike the man between the eyes. If the blade was turned the opposite way, against the flesh, she could summon Jiraiya in a pinch.

"In death, the Honorable Tosogare asked your friend to remember who he had been and who he was."

Rin did not trust her voice. But she had to ask.

"Is he still here?"

Sora shook his head.

"I no longer have the sight. It passed at last onto my niece who was safely delivered three years ago after a string of boys. But I know enough, is he worth it?"

Later, she would wonder whom he had meant—Obito or Kakashi. But in that moment, in a shrine hidden in a public bathhouse for those who believed in the old gods, the onmyouji and spirits, she said "Yes, he is worth it."

"I'm glad." Sora smiled. "Then this journey has not been a waste. Perhaps you know what this means—_I am watching you. I am always watching you._"

The scalpel fell out of her nerveless fingers and clattered on the floor. She held her hands to her mouth, holding back a scream.

"And this," Sora said. "Is my promise to you. You will keep your word."

The candles went out.

"Farewell Nohara-san, we will not meet again."

"But."

She swore as she accidentally kicked the table over. Food spilled on to the floor. She fell to her knees, trying to stack it back before the stone Buddha and his solemn face. By the time she looked up, Sora was gone.

On the other side of the map, somewhere in the Wind Country, Yamagaze Sora wheezed as blood sprayed across the dunes. Lightning punctured his lungs as he was caught at last. And when his killer tried to withdraw his hand, Sora twisted a fist in the red clouds and held firm.

"You had a wish." He said steadily. Souken was dead three years. Dead for a girl born in the blood. One last sacrifice for their family. It was done. Sousuke was safe like their mother wanted. "I will help you."

The second man, a defector from Kiri, held back, spooked into stillness as a trout might when an eagle's shadow passes overhead.

Hatake's face twisted in frustration.

"Live long and _gloriously_."

She found Jiraiya yawning like a battered tomcat in a rare drop of sunlight, waiting for food to be brought out to him to break his fast. Yet, his eyes were kunai-sharp and weary. There were new faces in town. She had seen them as well. Not Kuroi or any of the Seifuujin though it could have been a clever disguise. But she believed Sora when he said that his men, his _family_, were gone.

Rin wondered if she would ever understand the clan mindset.

"Time to go home, old man." She announced, thieving a dumpling off his plate.

"So early!" Jiraiya complained, picking up a pair of chopsticks and rolling them between his palms. "We just got here."

She shrugged.

"No time like the present."

"And just like that?" He asked stabbing the chopsticks in her direction. "You, who tore up the invitation for Naruto's first birthday, Minato and Kushina's wedding—and by the way, they _still_ blame me for that—"

"I saw Yamagaze Sora at the bathhouse." She interrupted and Jiraiya hunched over with a hangdog expression.

"Er, I don't suppose he was taking in the sights and having a nice, long soak."

She flashed a quick grin at her mentor.

"No such luck."

"The Uchiha again, Rin?"

"Obito." Rin corrected. "And only partially."

Jiraiya thanked the woman who brought him a bowl of broth and noodles.

"Ah Rin, they still hate us for Tosogare."

"They hate you." She snorted. "I paid my dues and they let us go."

"Only because there is nothing to be gained by setting us against the Iwa. Their discontent is long."

"Why yes I did notice the old woman stomping on your shadow."

Rin decided that she was hungry after all and asked for a second bowl of noodles on Jiraiya's tab. Jiraiya squinted at her, shook his head and began slurping down his food.

"My point is that the onmyouji are no allies of ours."

"So you would ignore their warnings?"

"You didn't tell me that there was one." Jiraiya pointed out.

"Half of it is personal." Rin admitted and that was about all she could say regarding the matter. Her mentor just had to trust her, that was all. But when Jiraiya seemed more interested in picking the last bits of noodles out from the hearty pork broth than listen to her, Rin said, "I need a teacher."

"I'm busy." The response was automatic, ready-made. It meant that Jiraiya had no leads. He was sitting idle. Penning a few paragraphs here and there. His newest title was called Icha Icha Tactics and it promised to be his next best seller.

"Orochimaru was looking for ways to claim immortality."

"I know." After a pause, Jiraiya grumbled, "God_dammit_."

Rin's noodles arrived. She stirred the bowl once and poured generous amounts of soy sauce in the broth.

"I'll need help." She coaxed. "I still don't know how to be a good teacher."

"No," Jiraiya snorted. "I guess I never taught you how."

Denial was on the tip of her tongue. But instead, she said, "You taught me how to survive."

The man crossed his thick arms with a fond sigh.

"And look at you now. Everyone's been asking where I found you. Well almost everyone. Kushina's been threatening to castrate me if I didn't bring you back."

A warm glow tickled her stomach.

"Oh?"

"You're a ghost." Jiraiya speared a dumpling and swallowed it. "Half my contacts don't think that you exist. In our line of work, there is no greater skill than anonymity."

It also helped that she pinned most of her jobs on her erstwhile teammate. Because only the strong had the right to a name. Only the strong could flaunt their allegiances and wear a belt of reward around their necks.

"So you're coming? Minato can't save you forever."

"Fine, fine. I need to promote my books anyway."

"Good." Rin said. Pleased with herself.

She picked up her chopsticks and tapped it three times on the table.

Obito would have been 25 if he had lived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **[1]** Wu zhong liuxing zhi qi – Wuxing, one of the basis for onmyoudo


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COVID19 does not help with the creative process. 
> 
> Stay safe!

"Did you hear about the revolution in Ame?"

"There is no revolution. Just a bunch of starving orphans."

"Shh, not here!"

Jiraiya tapped his feet impatiently.

Getting into a village was easy. She and Jiraiya had been doing it for years. They had the routine down to an art. They simply walked up to a gate in a crowd and nobody raised an eyebrow at the flash of wrinkled paper and smudged ink, occasional ryo pinned on top.

And her mentor proved to be the most excellent distraction when the heavy wooden box he was carrying popped open to reveal stacks of newly minted porn, hot off the press. From a logistical standpoint, it would have been much easier to seal the books inside a scroll. But Jiraiya was a salesman as well as a showman and he was adamant that the books sold better when customers could see the wares, when they could touch the pages and get a glimpse of ink, a stroke of character, and inevitably handed over the crumpled ball of cash.

Gross.

But she was already inside the gates while Jiraiya was not. She would look for him at the public bathhouse if the Anbu didn't pick him up first.

As the heavy doors closed behind her, she allowed herself to be pushed along with everyone else, marched single-file down the street. The streets were wide and open to give an impression of welcome. Empty houses almost managing to reassure the visitors. But she and her fellow travelers stayed packed like sardines, wary as cattle were warry of wolves nipping at their heels.

A man was singled out by an Anbu agent. He stumbled as he was pushed against a wall, Dog cutting him out of his raggedy clothes. The man seemed to shrink on himself, blanched white with terror.

There were no more whispers of Ame or their failed rebellion afterwards. A woman behind her muttered reassurances and prayers to her son. Rin, with her sunburnt scalp and downcast eyes, was indistinguishable from one traveler to the next. Eventually, streets opened up and they began to part ways. Some went left, some went right. Those who were familiar with Konoha walked with purpose. Others, timidly stepped on shadows.

Rin knew where she wanted to go.

She didn't go home.

Instead, she found herself in front of Ramen Ichiraku, on the tail end of service when customers were hurriedly gulping pork bone broth and getting it everywhere.

Ayame, no longer the petite, little girl making deliveries on a rickety bike, collected dirty dishes in one hand and wiped tables with the other. Teuchi, when he saw Rin, waved her over to a seat that was still warm from the previous occupant.

Rin sat down and without looking at the menu, rattled off a few things that she liked. She was only a little disappointed that Teuchi did not recognize her considering how many times she had been by as a genin, then chunin.

Ayame blanched at the order and asked timidly for payment. Rin put down the money. If she was being honest, Ramen was not her food favorite. She could have easily gone somewhere else, take her business to shops with regional specialties. But ramen was familiar. Ramen meant plenty. Ramen was something Minato and Kushina treated her to back when she had a team.

A flight of dumplings were placed in front of her, golden and crisp-skinned. Rin immediately placed one piece off to the side.

Teuchi placed two cups of sake in front of her.

He may not have recognized who she was but he knew what she was. And she was grateful that the rest of her feast was served without a pause, including extra slices of char-siu.

Suddenly, the awning flapped as though struck by a whirlwind. Rin kept calm because Teuchi and Ayame was calm. She was in Konoha; she was among allies. There was no reason to be afraid.

"Oy chef!"

Rin stopped mid-slurp. She recognized the voice.

"Five bowls to go!"

Teuchi laughed.

"The usual Anko?"

"Like I have a choice."

Mitarashi Anko used to remind her of a scalded cat when they were young. A cat that had swam ashore by the skin of its teeth after being dumped in the river. Haughty, even as it shook in its thin bones and paper skin.

Rin understood pride. Ten years was a long time.

Anko's face, which had been moodily pinched and short at the chin, had filled out into a more pleasing shape, softening the edge of her slanty eyes, making her appear less sullen and resentful. Despite her sharp words, she maintained an air of fondness and exasperation, no longer the attention-starved teenager who had stood beside her at the Hokage's inauguration, but a veteran shinobi.

And Rin could not help but stare at her open collar, at the swell of her breasts under the mesh shirt.

Anko noticed her looking and Rin quickly turned away, fighting off the hot blotches that choked her neck.

"Oy," Anko said, "You wanna fight or fuck?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, do you want to fight be or fuck me." Anko repeated slowly like she was talking to an Academy freshman. "You were looking at me. People only do that if they want to fight me or fuck me. Which is it?"

"I can't do both?" Rin blurted out and was at once delighted and mortified as Anko rocked back on her heels, like she'd been sucker-punched, her expression settling into something that resembled interest.

The other woman tilted her head as she considered Rin's words.

"Oh yeah?" Anko peeled a piece of narutomaki from Rin's chin and flicked it over her shoulder.

Ayame sighed in the background.

Rin hadn't washed in three days. She didn't remember the last time she combed her hair—probably around the same time as when she stopped showering, when she left the little shitty boomtown which had not been remote enough to avoid the Seifuujin—and she was sure that she smelled. She had been traveling with _Jiraiya_. But Anko, whom she hadn't seen in ten years, was standing in front of her, leaning with intent.

"You're ramen is ready." Teuchi interrupted, thrusting five bowls of ramen on top of the counters.

The moment was broken. Anko turned around and grabbed her order.

Rin thought, Rin was sure, Rin thought Anko might have been blushing.

Ten years was a long time.

Some things stayed the same, others changed.

"Next time," Rin said pleasantly. "I might take you up on your offer."

"Really." Anko said in distraction.

"Yeah."

Anko turned to her with a crooked smirk and disappeared.

"Ah, young love." Teuchi said, serving her extra noodles.

"Dad!" Ayame protested.

Rin shrugged. She wasn't about to argue with free food.

Ten years was a long time after all. Long enough to live and forget, long enough to recover from loss, from heartbreak and betrayal. Ten years was a time enough for alliances to be broken and remade, to murder and plot revenge, from the turbulent Land of Wind to the cold frontiers of Land of Frost.

After lunch, she walked towards the market district which was bustling with customers and vendors, squeezed tight between rows of buildings that hadn't changed since founding.

It felt strange. Rin had grown up in the markets, helping her parents manage their stall after Academy lessons. She knew the old-timers, the vendors who had been there long before Konoha had been a glimmer in the First Hokage's eyes. She knew the best places to get sweet tofu or sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves. She thought about dropping by her parents' stall, crowded with bags and jars of spices, and immediately nipped the idea in the bud.

Some things had changed. She saw that Old Sho's weapons shop was gone. In its place was a charming little bookstore which had a copy of the _Tales of a Gutsy Ninja_ in a box for free. She took it because she had never actually read the book before and only heard about it in passing when she edited Jiraiya's manuscripts for a modest fee, too lazy to go out and find work. She nibbled on a stick of candied hawthorn as she peeled back the cover and found Jiraiya's chicken scratch inside.

_'For the next Gutsy Ninja!'_

Rin smiled.

As she rifled through her mentor's first book, she passed by a takoyaki stall with a sad, paper sign taped across its banner.

The takoyaki stall was permanently closed. Konoha was at war with Kiri. The waters near the Land of Waves was too warm for octopus and stock from the Land of Lightning went to feed the rich.

It couldn't be helped, she thought. And she turned around.

There were certain people she could not forget. No matter what they wore or how their skin tasted, she could pick them out from a sea of a thousand faces, a sea of a hundred thousand faces, and know them.

The hawk mask did not fool her as it would have anyone else. Rin met Uchiha Shisui when he was young, when they were both young. Ten years ago when he was a boy whose mop of curly black hair barely came up to her chest, back when he was the little cub in a clan of killers that had birthed Obito.

Shisui landed with grace—of course he did—between a throng of people which rippled around him averted eyes. Rin forced herself to walk with her chin up high instead of losing herself in the crowd as she should have done, as she would have done anywhere else, because Uchiha Shisui had come to collect and what he wanted was something she could not give.

"Nohara-san."

"Shisui," Rin said coolly. "It's been a while."

The hawk mask lifted, enough for her to see a glimpse of teeth, and it quickly slid back into place.

"It has. We should catch up, when you have the time of course."

"I'm sure an Anbu agent such as yourself has much more pressing matters than talking to a nobody." Rin said sweetly.

Shisui made a noise that might have been laughter in another person's mouth.

"But you're not a nobody Nohara-san, are you?" He leaned in. "My _cousin_ did not think you a nobody."

A chill swept down her spine despite the sun.

"...what do you want?"

"Like I said, I want to talk."

"Does your family know?"

"Only what I want them to."

Shisui's answer carried many implications. It would be stupid to deny his request. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Fine," She gritted out. "Where?"

Shisui stared at her through the holes in his mask. His eyes might have even flashed red.

She stared back.

"Meet me where we met last." He said finally.

And as though summoned elsewhere, Shisui disappeared, barely disturbing the ground at their feet. He was very good.

The hawthorns turned into ashes on her tongue. Her lunch sat like a heavy lump in her stomach. She thought she had gotten in unnoticed. Apparently, she was wrong.

She willed herself to remain calm. She was in Konoha. She was among allies. She was home.

She threw out the stick of candied fruit.

+++++12+++++

Rin left the market with a bag of sweets in one hand, wine in the other. The sweets were to placate her great-grandmother. The wine wa/s for when her criticisms eventually cut at her nerves.

She turned her head against her shoulder and took a sniff. A bath was also in order. Rin assumed Jiraiya would want to sell his book first. Getting caught peeping at a public bathhouse would guarantee the Hokage would come down on him faster than Kushina at Ichiraku on somebody else's dime.

Therefore, bathhouses were safe for one more night. She was careful not to make eye contact when she went in. Active and retired shinobi had their own bathhouses closer to the Hokage Tower. But Rin was aiming for anonymity. She didn't want anyone to know she was in Konoha. Not her parents, not her great-grandmother, not Kurenai, Asuma, Gai, Genma or any of her classmates, not Oban or Homura, not Kushina, and certainly not Minato.

She was up to her ears in hot water but the talisman around her neck, made of silk and gold thread, floated as it took in water. An old woman, the only other person in the tub with her, squinted at the gaudy green and red stripes before breaking out into a gap-toothed grin.

"Ah, I see you also follow the way. Your parents taught you well."

"Oh no." Rin closed a fist around her talisman. "I don't believe in that spiritual BS."

"Then why wear it?" The old woman asked slyly.

Biting back an answer, she slapped away the creeping, skeletal hand. Chiyo of Sunagakure was nearing her eightieth decade if she was a day but was honored as a chief poisoner and the founder of Suna's puppet brigade.

Old women were _dangerous_.

Instead of being offended, the old woman cackled and pushed herself closer.

"Where are you from dearie?"

"I'm from here." She said, edging away.

"Oh? I haven't seen you before."

"I don't normally make a habit of being here." She replied.

"Hiding are you? That's alright." The old woman said before Rin could respond. "There is no shame in hiding."

Rin wanted to argue. She had an excuse lined up on the tip of her tongue. She had a thousand excuses. Her house was in the merchant district. She worked at the hospital. She was an active shinobi. Subterfuge was her job description.

But the woman was right. Rin was hiding. She had been away for so long, she wasn't sure how to squeezer herself back into the mold of chunin, Nohara Rin. Her identity dissolved like paper in water at the thought of meeting people who knew her, who thought they knew here and expected certain things of her.

She sighed.

"Well auntie, what are you hiding from?"

"Just old age my dear." The old woman chortled. "Something to look forward to yourself. Why, when I was in my prime, I was hot commodity! Isn't that right Rosey?"

Rosey, a middle-aged woman with a sleeve of red petals down both arms, scooted away, spooked by the woman's booming voice.

"Bah." The old woman spat when she was deserted. "In my days, we respected our elders."

"And when was that?" Rin asked, dry as dust. "Founding?"

A bony elbow jabbed her side.

"Just you wait, before you know it you'll wake up with wrinkles and your only friends will be the eunuchs at the Fire Temple."

"Wow. That is awfully specific."

The old woman took a bucket and poured water of her head. Her grey hair snarled and sank like snakes beneath the bubbling water.

"It takes strength to live. You are strong. You have old eyes."

"Not as old as yours." Rin deflected.

"Old enough to tie that talisman around your neck." The old woman observed. "That is powerful protection."

"So I've heard."

"You make enemies if you live a long life."

"No." Rin said in faux-surprise. "Someone wants to kill you? Why?"

"Oh many have tried." The old woman said, squeezing her hair into a tight rope. "They all failed. I was always good at running."

"There is no honor in cowardice." Rin commented.

"There is no honor in the shinobi life." The old woman replied sly.

"Careful auntie." Rin said. "Someone might be listening."

Because it was peacetime. And in peacetime, idle hands sowed strife.

"Let them." The old woman dismissed primly. "You don't get to be my age without learning a thing or two."

"No." Rin disagreed with a quirk of her lips. "You just need to be lucky."

The old woman squinted at her, staring, as though perhaps seeing her for the very first time. Her wrinkled face, broiled red from the hot springs, shrank into that of a walnut.

"I think, I've stayed in too long."

"Do you need help?" Rin asked politely.

The old woman waved her off. With a slight heave, she lifted herself onto the edge and Rin saw that she had nothing below her knees. Rin looked, of course she looked, how could she not look, but did not comment. Perhaps the old woman had lost them in the last Shinobi War or the one previous. Maybe it was a clan thing, infighting between heirs.

"Thank you for sitting with me dear."

"Likewise auntie." Rin said. She hoped that their paths never crossed.

+++++12+++++

Rin dried herself off and shoved her old clothes down the trash. She put on a kimono, linen, cheap, but not visibly, violet, the exact shade of her facial markings before she stopped wearing them, and in the mirror, a stranger stared back with wary brown eyes. A young woman wiser to hardship, a young woman ten years on, to whom a long time had passed.

It was strange to be herself. To be a version closest to herself when she had pretended to be a noble, a scullery maid, a washwoman, a waitress, a farmer, all without batting an eye.

Jiraiya told her once, the hardest part of the job was remembering why.

It had been a long time since she was at the memorial stone. It was hard visiting an empty gravesite. It held Obito's name though it wasn't for him. She knew he wasn't there. Kakashi knew he wasn't there. Minato knew he wasn't there. The Uchiha knew he wasn't there. She couldn't even pretend after what happened at the-place-between-the-rocks.

She wished that she had better offering than flowers, a piece of candy that had been meant for her great-grandmother and a glass of rice wine. Some of the names on the memorial stone had been her classmates, teachers, and patients. And for them, she lit an incense. The white smoke puffed and sputtered as the flame caught and gnawed at the charcoal paste.

For Kakashi, she left a kunai at the base of the memorial stone.

+++++12+++++

Her house was unchanged. Rin didn't know what she had been expecting. The house sat in the merchant quarters, a strip of grass on each side, standing apart from its neighbors.

The chicken were asleep and didn't bother sounding the alarm. It wasn't her great-grandmother who opened the door when she knocked. Instead, her mother opened the door, brows creased in consternation at a late-night visitor.

Nohara Ruko was older, much older than the face she thought of only sometimes. In dreams in quiet times. In truth, she had nearly forgotten when it looked like.

They had the same hair. They had the same eyes.

"Can I help you miss?"

"Mom. It's me." She cleared her throat. "It's Rin."

+++++12+++++

Heavy fists thudded against the door.

"Busy." Kakashi said, slamming an answering foot forward.

"Bullshit, bull-shit!" Hidan shrieked. "You're reading porn!"

"Hmm." Kakashi agreed, turning a page.

The other man left with a curse, swearing up and down that he would sacrifice him to Jashin or whatever pagan deity he believed in. Good thing Zetsu wasn't listening in. Zetsu was more than likely to slide through the walls just to see how everything 'worked'. Tucked between his heels, Akino muttered, "You take me to the nicest places boss."

Kakashi mimed a zipping motion against his lips. The hound subsided with a sigh. Kakashi took out a piece of paper he had been using as a bookmark and slid it in his collar. When Akino looked up, he held up three fingers.

Akino nodded and disappeared.


End file.
